


when you're not strong

by qwanderer



Series: Hear Me [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Norse Religion & Lore, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/F, F/M, I love him, Loki likes to hear himself talk, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Multi, Other, Ragnarok, Rhodey is the bestest of bros, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, and the violence is pretty spot-on T, but probably closer, especially if it's about how he did his best and the deck was stacked against him, even I don't know, gosh this is a lot of language for a T rating, heed the new archive warning, it looks a little dicey there in the middle but my original plans have triumphed, more tags will be added as the story evolves, more violence than initially expected, not quite the myth version either, not the movie version, officially frostiron endgame, quoiro Tony Stark, seriously tony & bruce's thing here is in the quoiro void, the relationship stuff is pretty G tho, unintentionally exploring the spectrum between romantic and platonic?, what an annoying muse, with aliens so whatev
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-06-09 01:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6883957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Now, that's not a good look. That's a patented 'I don't want to tell you how much equipment I blew up accidentally' Tony Stark face if I've ever seen one. So spill. What did you do? Did you kidnap that other kid? The one you stole the Dora watch from? What was his name, Harley? Is that even his real name or was he trying to impress you?"</p><p>"Harley is safe and sound in Tennessee. We Skype sometimes. I am <em>not</em> the one being a creeper and dropping my all-powerful self into the middle of someone else's life, this time."</p><p>"Uh-huh." Rhodey frowned thoughtfully. "Thor come back?"</p><p>Tony sighed, sank down into a chair, put his feet up on Rhodey's bed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have very little idea where this is going. A vague direction and a couple of other ideas, at most. I will rate it when I figure out the correct rating. Also I'm sure there will be many more tags.

Tony hated that Rhodey had been injured, really wished he wasn't in the hospital with life-changing injuries, but on the other hand, he wasn't off on a mission _now_ , wasn't in danger of his life _now,_ and he was there, had time to spare, whenever Tony felt like stopping by. It was nice to have people who were there. 

"You look happier," Rhodey commented today. "You finally make things right with Pepper?" 

Tony paused. "No. Yes?" He grimaced. "It depends how you define - " 

"You ended things, didn't you. For good." 

Tony blew out a breath, starting to pace the small room. "Rhodey. I'm just not the guy... I'm not the guy she needs. I'm not the guy both of you seem to think I can be." 

Rhodey sighed. "I'm not gonna tell you what you can and can't be. Lord knows, I've always found it's better to let you do your own thing and figure your own stuff out. But Tony, you do better with people. And if Pepper isn't around, what are you doing when you're not here? Rattling around in your mansion? Working on your cars and your armor?" He shook his head. "I'm sorry about Bruce, and JARVIS. They were good for you, I know that, and I know you can't replace either of them, but just don't spend too much time alone, okay?" 

Tony inclined his head, scrunching up his face a bit. "Funny enough," he told Rhodey. "I've had company." 

"Casual hookups don't count. And neither does FRIDAY. She's practically a baby, even I can tell that." Rhodey scrutinized his face, trying to interpret his reactions. "You didn't try to keep that spider kid, did you? People aren't pets. Except the ones you built from the ground up." 

Tony waved a hand. "Nah, he's got better things to do. Occasionally he comes over on the weekends and we talk equipment." 

"So who's your mystery guest?" 

Tony frowned, looking slightly pained. 

"Now, that's not a good look. That's a patented 'I don't want to tell you how much equipment I blew up accidentally' Tony Stark face if I've ever seen one. So spill. What did you do? Did you kidnap that other kid? The one you stole the Dora watch from? What was his name, Harley? Is that even his real name or was he trying to impress you?" 

"Harley is safe and sound in Tennessee. We Skype sometimes. I am _not_ the one being a creeper and dropping my all-powerful self into the middle of someone else's life, this time." 

"Uh-huh." Rhodey frowned thoughtfully. "Thor come back?" 

Tony sighed, sank down into a chair, put his feet up on Rhodey's bed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." 

"You know, at this point, I would think that'd be pretty hard to accomplish." He patted Tony's ankle. "Come on, just tell me, I'm getting worried." 

"I'd like to preface this whole conversation by saying that I'm pretty sure I'm not delusional. Although since I'm pretty sure no one else has seen him since his reported death, it's possible I'm wrong. Secondly: I'm well aware he's not a saint. Although considering how things have gone recently with Saint Rogers, I'm calling that a plus. But he's been... thoroughly non-murderous, at least when he's been hanging around where I can see him. Which has been a lot." 

"Gimme a name, Tony," Rhodey said, and it was clear from his tone that he was no longer messing around. 

"...Loki?" 

"...Loki. As in the guy who led an invasion against Earth and killed dozens of people. The guy who threw you out of your tower without your armor on. That Loki?" 

"Yeah. Weird, right? He just shows up one day and... starts hanging around. Chatting. I don't even know why. What he gets out of it. But it's been... weirdly good. To have someone else around who knows what it's like to crap up so spectacularly that they almost destroyed the world." 

Rhodey frowned at him for a long time after that. "Well, personally, I'd be worried about that," he said. "But you know more about the guy than I do. You sure it's him?" _You sure you aren't losing it?_ his expression asked. 

"Hey, North Pole," Tony asked the ceiling. "You lurking today?" 

"My faith in this man, based only on your implication that he can be trusted with this, is, frankly, ridiculous," Loki said, appearing behind Tony dressed in a soft, coarse-woven green shirt and leather pants. "But then, so is all of this. You trusting me. Anyone trusting anyone, really." 

"I'd agree, but, Rhodey's always been my exception," Tony told him, and patted the chair next to his. 

Loki nodded regally, and sat. 

Rhodey stared. Then he pinched himself. 

"See, that's what I did!" Tony exclaimed. "And I'm pretty sure no one but Loki would try to trick us into thinking Loki is here, so." 

"Loki," Rhodey addressed him flatly. "I'd say it's good to meet you, but I'm not so sure it is, quite yet." 

"Your opinions, of course, are your own, and understandable," Loki said. "But after everything your Tony Stark has been part of, after everything that has been said of him, I trust you know that there are always two sides to a story, especially when one has been lied to for decades by the very people who claimed one as family, and especially when the Mind Gem is involved." 

Rhodey made a small scoffing sound. "Well, this oughta be good," he said. 

"I was not well, when I was sent to Earth with the scepter. I had been broken, too many times in too few years, and between the torture of Thanos and the manipulation of the Mind Gem, I was... lost to their plot, little more than an automaton. It was only when I heard Tony Stark speak for the first time that I began to remember who I was, what I was capable of, and that something mattered in the world more than avoiding further pain. The way he speaks... it has resonance deep into the psychic dimension, meaning broader than the words available to him. I sensed in him a kindred spirit. And I believe that, even then, so did he, in at least some small way." 

"I did peg you for a very specific brand of attention whore," Tony confirmed with a smirk. 

"I made myself a common enemy to draw the rest of you together, as best I could with Thanos, the Other, and the gem looking over my shoulder, pushing me to conquer. I opened the rift over the very seat of so much of your world's power, and bought your heroes time to arrive, to organize." 

"That _was_ the plan," Tony noted with amusement. "You even told me." He hadn't actually heard this part of the story before, but it all made sense with what he had been learning already. "How'd that play for Thanos?" 

"He relishes the deaths of heroes," Loki told them. "He wanted me to kill you all, publicly, for the spectacle, for his enjoyment. But by that time, I rather hoped that in such a standoff, you would win. I had no desire to return to Thanos to receive either his praise or his punishment." 

"And the cutoff safety on the wormhole? All part of the plan?" 

"The Mind Gem engineered that, I think," Loki said. "It had gotten a taste of Midgard and preferred the thirst for power it found here to Thanos's thirst for death. It had control of Selvig's mind to the extent it wanted, after all. And the Gem has certainly had some interesting adventures in the time since it came here in my hands." 

"That's the yellow thing in Vision's forehead, right? The thing from inside the staff? You think it has its own agenda?" 

"It _is_ mind, Colonel Rhodes. It _is_ agenda. I believe it meant to create Wanda, it meant to create Ultron. And I believe that despite the strength of the personality now keeping it in check, it meant to do this." Loki gestured at Rhodey's unmoving legs. "As a sort of revenge against Tony for trapping it in the rigidly principled personality of JARVIS." 

Tony frowned at Loki. "I thought you said the thing was okay, now. Contained." 

"It is in Vision's nature to care for humans, to care for humanity, yes. The stone is restrained as it ever has been. But given that Wanda has been shaped by the Mind Gem into a tool it felt it needed, and that there may now be a kind of resonance between the two, I believe the Mind Gem may have enough outside influence in the form of the Scarlet Witch to divert Vision's attention away from protecting others. Towards her, the object of his preoccupation." 

Tony took a breath. "So even if Jarvis was perfect, Vision has a mind like the rest of us. Fallible." 

"Traitorous," Loki agreed. "Weak." 

"Human," Rhodey offered. "Prone to falling in love. Hey, I may not exactly be thrilled about the result, but that kind of connection? It's part of being alive, okay? He could have handled it better, maybe, but none of us are perfect. And I don't plan on holding it against the guy." 

Loki heaved a breath. "That," he said, "makes me vastly more optimistic about the odds of my entering your good graces, given time." 

Rhodey turned his eyes on Tony. "You really believe him about all of this?" 

"It's definitely compelling, as stories go." He shot Loki a glance. "I'm starting to." 

"Well in this world, I've heard stranger things, I guess. So just be careful. And remember that he's not your only friend." 

Tony scoffed. "Yeah, I know." But he'd looked like he needed to hear it. 

"Okay. Just so long as that's clear. Now, back to the previous topic." Rhodey looked thoughtfully at Loki for a moment, then waved a hand. "Scram, Loki. Lemme at least pretend I'm talking to my buddy alone. 'Kay?" 

Loki nodded, and blinked out of sight. 

"What were we discussing, again?" Tony asked. 

"Are you really okay?" Rhodey asked earnestly. "Even if you and Pep didn't work out... it's not just you, okay, She's great, but so are you, and if you two couldn't make it work it means she wasn't right for you. I know you feel like it's rare to meet someone who can tolerate you. And you can be a pain, yeah? But you're worth all of it. And Pepper is not the be-all and end-all of your romantic life. If it's really over... you can find someone else. What about that spider-kid's aunt? I've heard good things." 

Tony shook his head. "Nah, he doesn't want me around her. Which. I can understand. It's always gonna be... messy, with me." 

"That doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile." 

"Hey, at least let me wallow for a little bit, okay?" 

Rhodey laughed lightly. "You don't exactly look like you've been wallowing. You're allowed to be not okay about it. But you're also allowed to be okay, if that's where you're at. Or both. I just don't want you to think she's your only hope for having the life you want." 

Tony squinted at him for a minute. "Okay, yeah, all right," he said. "No narrowing my options until the bitter end. Suppose I can live with that." 

Rhodey slapped him on the arm. "Go," he said. "Live your life. And be careful of that Loki character. Seems a little shady to me." 

Tony grinned. "See you around, honey bear." 

Once he was gone, Loki popped back in. 

"He seems a lot better," Rhodey told him. 

"Good," Loki replied absently, and sat, still looking at the door. 

"I couldn't figure out what your angle was. And then you started talking about Vision. About his 'weakness.' And then I saw it." 

Loki narrowed his eyes at Rhodey. "Whatever it is you think you know...." 

"You love him, don't you?" 

Loki looked gutted. Then defiant. "And what if I do?" 

"Then good. He needs someone who looks at him like that. And if that's you... I can see it, you know? You're both big, powerful, unstable. And terrified of letting people down. You know, it took me a while to get used to the fact that he and Bruce were good for each other, that they propped each other up. And Banner, he's the same way. He's a force for destruction, one little twist away from leveling a city. People like that, they can destroy each other, or they can shore each other up. And I've realized that it's better to try and get them to shore each other up than to try and stop them from destroying each other." Rhodey laughed a little bitterly. "Dealing with the superhuman, you've gotta learn fast." 

"You would encourage this?" Loki asked, a little incredulous. 

"Just don't leave, once you've started," Rhodey said, eyes drilling into Loki's now. "His parents died. Obie... well. Bruce left. Pepper left. The rest of the team. If you are just one more person who is gonna worm your way into his heart, then leave it gaping and torn open, then stop that right now, or I will find a way to kill you." 

"I understand," said Loki, shifting in the chair. "Perhaps... I should extricate myself before...." 

"Oh, no," Rhodey said, shaking his head. "Oh, no, you don't. Sit your ass down. Because you've already started. There's no backing out now. He's just started to heal. And you're not gonna tear away what you've given him. Not now. Not ever. You understand?" 

"I am not...." Loki swallowed. "I am not built to be faithful. To be solid. To be dependable. I can promise nothing to anyone and have it ring true. I am Loki. I am the god of lies. Of illusion. And I bring ruin everywhere I go." 

"Let him," Rhodey said, "prop you up. Let him be the person who's just extraordinary enough to help you be who you want to be. Because if this is gonna work, he needs to be able to give you just as much as you give him. I know you're dangerous, I know you're too smart for your own good. So is he. So do your best to stick around, and let him help you. That's all I'm gonna ask." 

"Thank you," Loki told him. "For all of that. Is there anything I can do for in return?" 

"Oh, that was all for Tony," Rhodey said. "Not for you. So just do all of that, and we'll be square." 

"Still, I feel that I am in your debt." Loki frowned thoughtfully at him. "I don't expect you to trust this offer, but... I might know of a way to help your injury to heal." 

"I'll think about it," Rhodey said. "Let me see how things go, first." 

He wanted to see how far he could take the healing process on his own. But also, he wanted to be sure of Loki, wanted to know whether accepting a gift from the guy was going to make Rhodey resent their interactions every time he took a step. 

Only time would tell. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I added a Tony/Bruce tag because I'm leaning pretty heavily on that relationship, although in this series, I think of them as platonic soulmates. It's really going to end up being able to be read either way, I think, but this is definitely a monogamous frostiron endgame fic. 
> 
> The story behind Jane/Roz/Thor is basically me having an unusual amount of angst over initial speculation about the Thor: Ragnarok cast, freaking out a couple of times, and then deciding that as long as I solidly established polyamorous Thor in my own worlds, I could handle a wide range of possible Ragnarok romantic subplots. Roz became part of this story in the time between the cast being leaked and the official announcements about who they'd be playing, when Roz seemed like a distinct possibility. I liked her so much as an element that I decided I was going to keep her.
> 
> ETA: some very minor edits were made here to smooth out some elements I introduced in later works. (If you remember Vision being referred to as Viz - no, you're not going crazy. That was in here.)

When Tony was in the workshop, he could still pretend everything was fine. 

No, that wasn't quite right. Everything was, pretty much, fine, or at least as much as it usually got in Tony Stark's world. 

But when he was in the workshop, he didn't feel the despair that permeated the rest of the house. All the guilt he had tried to work off by being here with Pepper as much as he could. All the fights, the tensions, and worst, the good memories that had turned sour when Pepper left. 

He wasn't a shut-in. He did other things. He went into Stark Industries R&D once or twice a week, offered himself as a sounding board for the projects going on there. 

Jane Foster and Roz Solomon, her current project coordinator, were working on some kind of weather control system inspired by the side-effects of the Bifrost. It was interesting work and they were great to work with, but sometimes too much talk about space, stars, wormholes or aliens could still make Tony's heart race under the wrong circumstances, and Roz, who had also been the project manager on several Bannertech projects, reminded him keenly of the absence of Bruce. 

Roz Solomon had come to Stark Industries via SHIELD after the events in DC, highly recommended by Hill for SI's new environmentally sound image. Bruce had accepted her proximity to their workspace in the tower after she'd proven her prowess both with him in the lab and against Black Widow on the mats - not a match for either of them, but she clearly knew a thing or two about both venues. 

It had been perfect, for a while. The tower, the Avengers, Pepper. Science with Bruce, Jarvis, Roz and sometimes Rhodey. Before Ultron. 

After Ultron, with Jarvis gone, Bruce and Thor run off to wherever, and Tony wanting more time with Pepper, he'd rebuilt in Malibu and asked what was left of the Tower science contingent to join SI's main R&D department in the area. But it wasn't his favorite personal think tank anymore, so his own projects, these days, were between him and FRIDAY. Vision, occasionally, before the Accords. And sometimes Rhodey. 

And now Loki. 

It twisted Tony up inside that, apparently, he now trusted Loki more with his personal projects than he trusted Vis - Vision, the being that contained all that remained of the consciousness that had been Jarvis. 

But here they were, chattering away about the suit repulsors, the power network of the newest model, when Tony's head came up, because he'd suddenly realized that Loki was filling the space left by Jarvis better than Vision had managed, better than FRIDAY was quite up to yet. 

The sound of his voice, the quick wit and sarcasm, the way he seemed to know everything and be everywhere at once at all times, all similar enough to slot in but different enough not to trigger the ache in his chest at everything that he'd lost. 

Except, in this brief moment, he had almost forgotten. 

He had lost track of what had once rooted him. He had gotten caught up in something alien, something strange, something that, in all likelihood, neither Pepper nor Rhodey would have approved of. And certainly not Steve. 

And the frightening part was, he wasn't at all sure that that meant it was wrong. 

* * *

Loki sat at Tony's side, a place he found increasingly familiar, welcoming enough to be disturbing in a life full of very little that had ever felt welcoming. 

Tony was chattering away about one of his armors, and while Loki was adept at hearing the context and undertones of people's words, his knowledge of physics did not have the same breadth as that of Tony Stark. So listening to Tony as he worked, Loki could let words and meanings flow by him without having stake in their meanings - except where the science did enter the realm of his understanding, which was always fascinating. Listening to Tony work was always either relaxing or invigorating. 

Presently the man was thoroughly involved in the mechanics of systems of his own invention, and so Loki's attention had drifted. But when the man suddenly fell silent, Loki was drawn back in. 

From the expression, from the way his flow of words and communications had cut off so abruptly, something was wrong. 

"What is it?" Loki asked, frowning at Tony. 

"Oh, sorry, nothing, I just...." The inventor waved a hand, dismissing the question as unimportant. 

It was very rarely that Tony intentionally tried to block his thoughts from Loki, when they were in conversation. Tony was always projecting something, always sending questions and intentions out into the world, and if there were no convenient beings to hear them, well, that was why he had created JARVIS to always be there, that was why FRIDAY was always listening in. 

He had stopped. Tony was, very deliberately, keeping something to himself. 

Loki could only assume that, given their history, he was the one Tony was keeping it from. It was as if he'd just remembered who Loki was, that Loki was not one of his small handful of trusted friends. 

"It is not nothing. Something is troubling you. Something about my presence. Do you wish me to go?" 

Tony heaved a deep sigh. "No," he said at last. "No, it's not you. Not in particular. It's not... it's everything. I keep losing track and screwing up and I feel like this is the same thing over again, I'm messing with things I don't understand. And that's a dangerous place, for me." 

Loki knew that feeling. He knew it all too well. That secrets and complexities and things that were kept from him tripped him up, over and over again, made him dangerous. But Heimdall had helped with that, of late, by sharing his knowledge freely. By guiding openly, collaboratively, instead of with ultimatums and insistences of superior knowledge. 

"I can help you understand," he offered. "I can help you pursue your curiosity about anything in the Realms. From the throne I see all. Heimdall has his own sort of vision. You may not understand the greater picture from your place here on Earth, but the knowledge is there. I can offer that much." 

Instead of being reassured, Tony began to radiate panic. "No, no, no," he said, shaking his head. "I can't get caught up in the whole universe's issues again, the bigger I think the more trouble I get in. Sometimes I distract myself and lose sight of what's important. I can't do that again. I have to stay... reasonable. Have to keep my feet on the ground." 

"Never," Loki said. "Not Iron Man. Iron Man was meant to fly. If you try to mold yourself to the example of those around you, you will fail. You are no more the average human than I am the average warrior of Asgard. If you try to measure yourself by their standards, adopt their morals, you will fail, and you will fall. And when one like us falls, we leave a smoldering crater of destruction." 

Tony's crazed laughter was back, the sound Loki hated so. "Yeah, I'm familiar with that part, now. Really familiar." The Accords. Ultron. The fall of SHIELD and the part Tony's inventions had played in it. The damage Stark Industries had done with Obadiah Stane at its head, and Tony playing the part Obie had set out for him, the irresponsible playboy. Behind those words, behind that laugh, they echoed, every time Tony had put his own power under someone else's control and it had backfired, spectacularly. Every time he'd let the judgement of others limit himself, people had died. Hundreds of people. When it came to his weapons, thousands. 

Loki felt those echoes deep in his soul. Jotunheim. Midgard. Whatever small part he played in the Dokkalfar attack on Asgard, in his mother's death. While playing the part of the liar, the trickster, the role everyone had expected of him. The dark foil to his royal brother. 

He chuckled as well, hearing the same deranged, hollow tone in his own voice, posture canting towards Tony almost involuntarily. 

Tony slouched towards him as well, until their shoulders touched, until they each held some of the other's weight. 

"It's too much," Tony muttered, voice breaking. _Genius. Knowledge. Riches. Wit. Power._

"But no one else can carry it for us," Loki agreed. 

They sat, for a long moment, just leaning against each other and thinking. Trying not to think. 

"I just...." Tony began. "There are some things that I _know_ are important, but I lose sight of them, and I need help remembering." 

"What is important?" Loki asked. 

"Friends," Tony answered, voice creaking a little again. "I always do better when I have friends around. But I get excited about projects, I get sidetracked, and I forget how important it is to do the things that will get them to stick around." _I am the common denominator here. It must be something I'm doing, or not doing._

Tony was Loki's only friend right now, so Loki felt less than qualified to give advice on this subject. He stayed silent, listening to thoughts ripple across the surface of Tony's mind. 

_Smoldering crater of destruction,_ came an echo. Then, _From the throne I see all._ "Can you tell me where Bruce is?" Tony asked then. _Is he okay? Does he want to be found?_

Tony spoke of him often enough, with such warmth. Longing. The echoes of their conversation bounced off the thoughts of his lost friend. Everything Loki tried to be for Tony, in this moment, felt like it might be an inadequate replacement for what Bruce Banner had been. 

Thinking of what Rhodes had said, Loki wondered if Tony had, in some way, been in love with the man, the way Loki was in love with Tony. With the way he expressed himself, with the way the truths of the world seemed truest when they came from his mouth. 

"He is safe," Loki told him. "He is offworld, on Vanaheim, with Thor. Thor enlisted his help in finding the remaining Infinity Stones, since he proved so adept at locating the Tesseract - the Space Gem - using what it had in common with the scepter - the Mind Gem. I've been keeping an eye on them, from the throne. They seem to be content in each other's company." 

"Good, that's good." A great deal of the tension in Tony's frame eased, and he slumped more heavily against Loki's shoulder. 

"I believe you spend quite enough of your attention on your friends," Loki told him. "Likely more than they bestow on you." 

Tony shifted a little, making a half-shrug. "I need _someone_ to put up with me." He turned his head a little, sitting straight again, to look at Loki. "That include you?" 

"I would be glad to think you considered us friends," Loki told him. "But it is up to you." 

Tony sighed. "Right now? I don't trust myself to make that call. I'm still not entirely sure you're not a hallucination, or here to ingratiate yourself to me in my vulnerable state to lure me over to the dark side. With cookies. Of doom. So what do you want? What are you really getting out of this? Because all this, what I've seen so far, is definitely looking too good to be true." 

Loki... could not tell him. 

Not until they were both more solid. Not until Tony believed in him, in his presence. 

Not until Loki knew for certain that he was more to Tony than a poor substitute for Pepper, or for Bruce. 

Instead he said, "I have a vested interest in keeping the Realms stable. In the case of Midgard, that means keeping _you_ stable. And besides, the more powerful beings owe me favors, the better." 

Tony just smiled. "Uh huh," he said, like he could see right through Loki. Like he could hear what Loki was not saying as easily as Loki could hear it in him. "You know, if you're finding it hard to resist my charms, you could just say so." Tony bumped shoulders with him again, settling into slightly wary contentedness. 

_No, I could not,_ Loki did not say. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, plot and science bros feels!
> 
> Disclaimer: I have never read the comics in which Roz Solomon features.
> 
> ETA: after watching Civil War again, I have made minor edits to this chapter to make it fit better between the main body of the movie and the last major pre-credits scene. There were issues of timing. Making this make sense with the movie is actually easier than making the movie make sense with itself.

After a troubling day spent in council with Heimdall, Loki returned to Earth. It was frightening, how much it felt already like coming home, to drift into Tony Stark's workshop, sit, get caught up in the rhythm of his music, his work, his thoughts. 

But today, he could not afford to relax. Thanos was coming. 

Tony looked up casually, spotted him, did a double-take. "You all right there, Springbok? Looking a little skittish." 

Loki leaned forward, put his elbows on the workbench, looking into Tony's eyes. "I would have your help with something." 

"I knew it," Tony said immediately. "I knew you were here for a reason. So what do you need? Tech? Firepower? Blackmail material on Earth's best and brightest? Lay it on me." 

Loki took a breath. "I must find a way to tell Thor that I am alive and Odin is dead." 

Tony blinked at him for a long moment. "And you want _me_ for that?" he asked. 

"I have no one else I can ask," Loki said simply. "The only person who knows that I am alive and Odin is dead is Heimdall. He is my only ally, and he hated me all my life, just as surely as the rest of Asgard. And he is needed there. He cannot abandon his place on the Bifrost. I have no one to ask. No one but you." 

"I'm not exactly the king of tact," Tony warned. 

"Tact I have," Loki told him. "I need courage. Bluntness. Subtlety will do me no good, here, I think, and when I try to imitate the Aesir tone, I fail miserably. A silver tongue is one thing, but... how do I tell Thor that his father is dead? The last time I told him that, he believed me, and he was steady enough, but then our mother lived. I have deceived him much in the intervening years. Then, he had never believed me dead." 

Tony shook his head. "Well, you definitely know Thor better than I do, and clearly I'm not the expert on talking the blond warrior type around to my side of things." 

Loki continued to watch him, tried to be earnest, practiced being blunt. "Come to Vanaheim with me. Stand by my side. Vouch for me. He may no longer trust me, but he has no reason to doubt your word." 

Tony gave a dry, bitter chuckle. " _I've_ got reason to doubt my word." 

"True. But _he_ does not." 

"Devious." Tony smiled a bit. "Still don't think you're being entirely transparent, here. About the what, or the why." 

But Loki could not speak the words of his true reason. 

_The truth is, I just want you there. Your presence calms me. You even my keel._

"Why now?" Tony asked into that silence. 

That, Loki could answer. 

"Heimdall has seen the second wave approaching. The mastermind of the invasion has a new army. The Tesseract may be on Asgard now, the Infinity Stone he came for last time, but the Mind Gem is here, the heart of the scepter, and Thanos will come after them all. Thor goes to find the whereabouts of the three that have not yet come to light." 

"There are five?" 

"Six. The Aether, the object which was being fought over when your Greenwich was invaded, is one. The Reality Gem." 

"Uh huh. So what's your plan?" 

"The Soul Gem may be his most tempting target, considering that it holds some measure over life and death. If we can find it, we can better plan, and perhaps, use it as bait. But if we are to concoct plans intricate and subtle enough to have even the ghost of a chance against Thanos, Thor must know who it is he is dealing with, what powers we have available to us." 

"And how much time do we have? Really?" 

"Not a great deal. Possibly only a few days. We should be quick." 

"Actually I kinda think we should take the time to saddle up, just in case, assemble some firepower.... Who do you think we can talk over to our side, given neither of us is particularly copacetic with the Avengers right now?" 

"You would know better than I," Loki said. "As I said, I now have but a single ally other than yourself. Thor is the only person I dare tell, and I am not even confident in that." 

"I'd try Rhodey if he wasn't down for the count. Vision...." _I don't trust him right now, but I don't want to say that out loud._

"It's dangerous for two of the Infinity Stones to come into proximity with each other more than necessary. He should stay here." 

Tony nodded sharply. "Okay, so. I won't risk Pete on this, and I managed to alienate Natasha by the end of this whole shit show. Plus you and the whole... Clint thing. So no Avengers. But I've got a former SHIELD agent working in Stark R&D who'll do in a pinch. Bruce likes her, which is a plus. And she seems pretty open-minded." _She tolerates me._

Loki smiled ruefully. Their two lives were far too much alike. 

* * *

"What's up, Boss?" Roz Solomon greeted him as he walked into R&D. 

Tony did not waste any time. "So you'd be interested in going to other planets, right? Just hypothetically?" 

"More than hypothetically. And you're planning something, if I know my Tony Stark at all." She frowned. "Is there a reason you're not asking Jane about this? She always loves a good jaunt offworld." 

"It might be dangerous," Loki said, stepping out of the shadows. "It might be war. Tony believes you will be more useful in that particular circumstance. And besides, Jane has no particular fondness for me." 

"Loki?" Roz said, shock and curiosity stretching her tone. She looked back and forth between the two men. 

"Yeah, he's with me," Tony assured her matter-of-factly. "We're going to go find Thor and Bruce and get their help with this... second alien invasion that might be happening? And since things aren't really copacetic between us and any of the other Avengers from the _last_ alien invasion, and a bunch of the new ones are in prison, we thought you might want to get in on this." 

Roz narrowed her eyes, peering at Loki. He wore the more relaxed version of his gold, green and black leather, but he still looked like an alien prince, stood like one. Made no effort to look less dangerous than he was. 

"Jane told me you died," she said at last. "Said she saw the body." 

"I was truly wounded, Ms. Solomon," he told her. "But there was illusion involved, as well." 

"And she told me about New Mexico. You _destroyed_ that town." 

"Yeah, well," said Tony, "Who _hasn't_ set a metal behemoth loose to rampage across the earthen landscape and then lived to regret it?" 

"Me," Roz immediately said, but there was a chuckle in her voice. "So we're expecting to team up with Bruce and Thor? I trust them at least enough to go with you and check out what you're doing. I'll wait on their words before I sign up to fight aliens." 

"Works for me," said Tony. "But, just as a precaution, what would you say to an Avengers-level gear upgrade before we leave?" 

"Can I get repulsors?" she asked. 

Tony grinned. "I knew you were a good choice." 

"So," she said as she tucked away her work. "Loki. Tell me, what was up with that first invasion?" 

* * *

Tony kind of appreciated that the first time he traveled by Bifrost, it was twice in quick succession. The things he noticed only vaguely on the trip to Asgard, he could make a note to focus on, on the way to Vanaheim. 

His stomach, however, appreciated it considerably less. 

Roz seemed to be having the time of her life, and during the brief intermission in Asgard, peppered Heimdall with questions about the effects the Bifrost had on local weather, the properties of the scorch marks it left, and how they tended to affect planets. 

"That doesn't make you nauseous?" he muttered an aside to her once they'd landed in Vanaheim. 

"Oh, yeah," Roz answered. "But I've had worse. Regularly. If it bothers you, just thank the gods you weren't born with a uterus." 

"I will do that," Tony answered, eyes somewhat widened. 

* * *

Loki cloaked them all in disguises that made them appear to be average members of the local populace, and they quickly found the inn where Prince Thor and his companion had been staying. It was a matter of a couple of simple little lies to get into the room while the two were downstairs at their evening meal. 

There they dropped their disguises, and waited. 

Thor stopped dead in the doorway while Bruce, still mid-sentence, ran smack into his back. 

"Loki, you live?" Thor gasped. 

"Tony?" Bruce, leaning around Thor to see, looked on with widened eyes. "Roz? What are you doing here, with Loki?" 

"Long story," Tony said. "Short version, the whole galaxy's at stake. The guy who brainwashed Loki and sent him to invade Earth is on the move again." He looked around. "Nice digs, Brucie." 

"Yeah, well. Everyone here's durable enough to be pretty much immortal," Bruce replied, "which is my favorite highlight, personally." He nudged Thor the rest of the way through the door before pulling it shut. 

"Well, we've definitely got our heroing gear with us," Tony assured him, gesturing to himself and Roz. "Lots to do." 

Thor was still staring at Loki, drinking in the sight of him. "Why did no one tell me you'd survived?" he asked. "Why did Father not tell me they'd found no body on Alfheim?" 

Loki sucked a breath through his teeth, and his eyes flicked to Tony. Tony just nodded, gave a little encouraging wave. 

"When you spoke to Odin after returning to Asgard with the Aether..." He trailed off. Then braced himself. "That was not Odin. Odin is dead." 

"No...." Thor said in a bare whisper. "Did you...?" 

"I did not kill him," Loki said, holding hands up as if to ward off Thor's anger. "But I sent him into the Odinsleep with a spell, and from there, he was too far gone, and slipped away." 

"What do you mean, _slipped away?_ " 

Loki spoke quickly now, urgently. "The father you once knew was already gone. His spirit left with Frigga's. But I think you already knew that, Thor. He had lost himself, lost his center. He had given orders that you were to be killed for your 'treachery.' I could not take the chance that he would, in his madness, follow through. I had to stop him. Please understand. I did not love him, but for your sake, I had hoped he would survive." 

Thor watched him, measuring, judging his honesty. At last, he seemed to put it aside. He asked, "Why did you let me think you dead on Alfheim?" 

Loki sighed. "Because you, dear brother, are a lovestruck fool. You let love pull you this way and that. If I was merely wounded, you would have dragged your feet. And the universe needed saving." 

Anger was heavy in Thor's tone now. "Am I not here? Have I not left Jane on Earth to do my duty as protector of the Nine? Have I not done so every time I was required?" 

"Yes, you have. And still she is a distraction. Still you wish to forget all this and settle on Earth with her." Loki turned, looking away, out the window at the hills of Vanaheim as he spoke. 

"I thought it would be simpler for you, without the complication of your wayward brother to worry on, to get on with the business of recapturing the Aether. Ruling Asgard. But then you came to me, gave up the throne, speaking of my memory as though it gave you pause even more than my presence, and I knew that I had been wrong, but not how to tell you. You will always be drawn to those you love, always content in their presence, always heartbroken when you must leave them to serve the Realms." He glanced at Thor again. "Satisfaction is not in my nature. I will always want... a wider world, a longer view. I cannot rest while the galaxy sits undefended. I must have one eye on it." 

Thor frowned. "You heard me say you were more suited to the throne than I, and you kept it? Let me believe that the Allfather was on the throne, when he was not? When you had removed him? You let me believe he had recovered. That he was well again." 

"I could not take the risk that you would wake him from his sleep. And I did not, actually, want to cause you any more pain. Not after Mother. Not with how you are. I should have told you, after hearing what you said. But it shocked me." Loki sighed again. "The throne is no easy place to sit. There are... many things to consider. Odin was like you. He let his satisfaction rest in his one true love, and when she was torn from him, he lost his ability to see the larger picture, to plan, to rule. I intended to give the throne over to you, when you stood before me, thinking me Odin. But if you were to be fixated the same way, if you could not be on the throne and with her at the same time, enough to do justice to both, then you would have gone the same way in the end, and Jane's life is but a single lightning's flash in your storm." 

"Who knows you live, and Father is dead?" Thor asked. "That it is you on the throne." 

"Only those in this room, one James Rhodes of Earth, and Heimdall." He shook his head. "And I do not claim the throne myself. I cannot, as myself, and I am done with trying to be Odin. That is not an exemplary model. No kingdom should rest on only one person for its stability. And so Heimdall and I, looking out on the Realms out of habit as we do, decided to share the burden. We are both, by nature, those who keep an eye out, those who will not let loyalty or love stand in the way of the continued health of the cosmos." 

Thor fell silent, knuckles to his lips, thinking. He strode to the window, looking out as well. 

"So that's why we couldn't see Odin?" Bruce commented. "He was dead?" 

"I can counterfeit his appearance well enough to fool Thor," Loki told him, "or most among the court, but you, who claimed the Beast gave you the ability to sniff out my madness, I was less sure of fooling." 

A small smile curled the physicist's mouth. He tilted his head a bit. "You smell... better now," he conceded. 

"I am," Loki agreed. "Time away from those who bullied and manipulated me, time to explore who I am as myself, have helped. But the turmoil that drove me to invade Earth is not yet finished. The Chitauri are gone, but Thanos... the one who led them... is not, and he must be faced." 

"He twisted you?" Thor asked. "Forced you to attack Earth?" He sounded torn between concern and hope. 

"I was weak, when he found me, and he had the Mind Gem. It took little enough twisting." Loki's expression was bitter. 

"What does he want?" Roz asked. "If he wanted to take over Earth, why not come himself? Why send you as his figurehead?" 

"He's after the Infinity Stones," Loki said. "He had the Mind Gem. He sent it with me to retrieve the Space Gem. Midgard was merely a prize with which to tempt the Chitauri." 

"Why didn't you tell me before?" Thor asked, voice thick with the heavy feel of the air in Asgard's prisons. 

"While Odin ruled, I did not trust him to believe. Since his death... I had hoped that, with the loss of Thanos's army and the one stone he had managed to get his hands on, he would take some time to regroup. But Heimdall has seen glimpses of him, of his new army, approaching. We may have little time." 

Thor took a breath, and came to focus. "What is your plan?" 

"We need to find the Soul Gem before he does," Loki answered. "After that... we play it by ear, as they say on Midgard." 

"We are here to speak to the secret keeper," Thor said. "We meet tomorrow. We will ask her if she knows its whereabouts." 

Loki gave a little nod. "A good enough place to start." 

"Who is your new comrade?" Thor asked, finally having eyes for the rest of the party and noticing Roz. 

Roz marched up to Thor and held out a hand. "Hey, I'm Roz Solomon. So, you should know I'm sleeping with your girlfriend." 

Tony's eyes widened. "Really, you think that's something he should know? You've got balls of steel, Roz." 

But Thor just looked Roz up and down, and said, "Treat her well." 

Loki raised his eyebrows. "I had not thought you had it in you," he told Thor. "You put away the throne for her sake, for love's sake." 

Thor inclined his head solemnly. "I am the protector of the Realms, if not their king. I have duties enough to keep me away from Jane. You are right, Loki, we were neither of us satisfied with being apart, being lonely. But Darcy suggested a kind of solution. That we might find it in ourselves to love each other, and to find love in other places, as well." 

Roz chuckled. "Well, the way Darcy put it to me was more like, 'they're each allowed to have a little sum'm sum'm on the side,' but, same basic idea, I guess." 

"And have you found other loves yet, Thor?" Loki asked him. 

"Not yet," his brother answered. "But it is... an interesting prospect, and, I think, a good one. Sif told me, as well, that there are nine realms, and the future king of Asgard must focus on more than one. Even if I am not to be king... even if I remain only a protector... I think it would benefit me to have... a wider perspective on the people of the Realms." 

Meanwhile, Bruce had drifted in Tony's direction. "Where's everyone else? The team?" he asked quietly. "Do they know Loki's with you? Is that why they aren't here?" 

Tony looked pained. "It's not Loki. And it's not.... You know that time bomb? You weren't the unstable element." 

Bruce's eyes closed for a moment. He breathed. "What happened?" 

Tony's voice began to boil up quick, spill out ahead of his words as he tried to convey it all at once. 

"Fucking Thaddeus Ross. Got himself made Secretary of State. And then what was I supposed to do, Bruce, _not_ listen to him? Okay, the Accords were a trap. The UN doesn't do anything that fucking fast, that fucking secret unless it's a trap. Steve, he wanted to run. But on the run, that's not a great place to be. You can't get things done. And things need to be done." 

Bruce just nodded in understanding, not bothered by the tripping words and the lightning-fast passage of concepts. And as Tony went on, though Bruce showed no external sign of it, Loki could hear the Hulk's voice build from a grumble to a roar. 

"No, we needed to walk right into that trap, look at it from the inside, see what we could do to _use_ it. And if we couldn't? Well, there's not a trap in the galaxy that can hold the Avengers. But Steve, I don't know how to get him to _hear me._ And of course he went off half-cocked, before we could figure things out. I wanted to try and figure things out! He took Sam, Clint, Wanda, even got Natasha on his side in there somewhere. And I _ran_ the calculations over and over, signing was the right choice. And I know I'm _not_ always right, gotta have someone to talk over this stuff, right? But you weren't there. Jarvis wasn't there. Pepper..." Tony bit his lip. "She got fed up, finally. So all I had, only person I trust to follow half of what I'm saying and make a good call, is Rhodey. And he agreed. He fucking _pushed_ me into it when I wasn't sure. Because... there was no right answer. Because it was Ross, and I'll always side with you over him, you know that right, Brucey, but I could hear your voice in my head and it said, 'Slow down. Talk it out. A personal grudge is no reason to slam the door in an asshole's face when the U. N. comes to call.' Was that right? Did I fuck that up?" 

"No," Bruce said, hand stuttering in midair before he let himself put a hand on Tony's shoulder. "No, Tony, you did okay. That was right." 

"He called you a _thing._ A _warhead._ I wanted to punch in his smug face and get him up close and personal with a _real_ warhead. But I've been trying. I've been trying to play by the rules." 

"What happened?" Bruce asked. "How are things now?" 

"Rhodey fell out of the sky. Broke his spine, don't know how bad it is yet. Friendly fire. I'm not talking to Vision. Nat's on the run, so is Steve. Ross has warrants. The others, they're already locked up. Only people I've been hanging out with recently are a couple of teenage boys who wanna be Iron Man and yon god of fucking shit up." 

"I'm sorry, Tony," Bruce said. "I'm sorry I wasn't there." 

Tony's arm came up to make the small point of touch between them into a half-hug, and they leaned into each other. "Yeah," was all Tony said, but there were worlds of meaning behind it. 

The background roar of the beast's anger quieted, as they settled together. 

Loki watched. 

He didn't know if he'd be able to share, the way Thor seemed to be able to do so easily. He wanted everything. 

But then, the question was likely academic, because the bulk of the time, what Loki actually _got_ was nothing. 

And he certainly had no desire to ask the green beast to share the man he obviously considered his own. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the minor edits to the previous chapter that confirm where this story falls in the Civil War denouement timeline.
> 
> I've done a lot of work on the final chapter recently and have concluded that this story will remain at a T rating, but will likely be followed by a PWP.
> 
> This chapter is short but I _really really_ wanted to post today because I've been getting so much great work done, even though a lot of it's been on the last chapter. The middle/plot/climax stuff is being really stubborn and intricate. I blame Loki!

Thor welcomed them all to his rooms for the night, though it took quite some time for the meeting to truly break up. They all had much to absorb, and much to plan for. Roz retreated first, to the third, as-yet-unoccupied bedroom of the royal suite. The one that had been Loki's, when the royal family had visited this part of Vanaheim many many years ago. 

Loki had no desire to enter that room, claim it as his own, to relive the memories of that time. Thor left next, and Loki noted that Thor had taken his own old room, leaving the king's room to Bruce. 

Well, the thick couches in the central area of the suite were not a terrible place to spend a night. 

Bruce had begun to speak of his journey through the Realms thus far, how after the brief stop in Asgard, Thor had taken him to Nidavellir, to consult with the engineers there about what kind of machines they made with the most sensitivity to radiation at the greatest distances. 

Tony eagerly listened, asked questions, and the two of them became deeply involved in a discussion of dwarven technology and what it could do that they'd never figured out on Earth. Loki was able to answer some questions they had, but for the most part, even with his great mastery of Allspeak and relatively good grounding in the sciences of Nidavellir, he was lost. 

All he had to pay attention to when that happened was the rapport of the two humans, how they followed each other's unspoken implication without the use of Allspeak at all, how they loved the discussion, how they loved each other. 

"...And then someone delivered a message to Thor that he was needed on Vanaheim, so we took some pieces that seemed straightforward enough to use, and came here." Bruce was interrupted by a huge, jaw-cracking yawn. "Wow," he said, looking at his watch. "I'd kind of forgotten how caught up I can get talking science with you." 

"Got that thing running on Vanaheim time zones now," Tony asked, "or do you just do the conversion in your head?" 

"Neither," said Bruce, standing. "I've just been generally trying to sleep when it's night back home, and there's very little natural light in a lot of buildings in Nidavellir, and it's night here now, so it's worked pretty well so far." He looked at the two of them, looked at the couches. "So Thor gave me a ridiculously enormous bed. I've seriously lived in smaller apartments. I'm certainly not going to use all of it, so you're welcome to join me." 

Loki felt like pinching himself now, because it had sounded as if that invitation applied to him as well. 

He had to be mistaken. So he sat and watched as the two made their way to the old king's quarters. 

Then Tony looked back and said, "You coming, hot stuff?" 

And Loki heard the truth of it, attraction and affection and concern and easy expectation all rolled up into one simple question. 

Loki realized then that he was helpless in the face of all this man was. That he would take what he could get, even if it meant risking the Hulk's wrath, or, more frightening still, heartbreak. 

_Helpless. Helpless. Helpless._ He heard it, felt it, with every beat of his heart. He didn't know what to do about it. 

He turned his eyes on Bruce, looking a question. Bruce cocked his head in a way that said it was up to Loki, but that the physicist would not be offended if Loki would rather not share a bed with the green giant that had pounded him nearly into paste on Tony Stark's penthouse floor. 

No jealousy was in evidence. The beast barely rumbled, more protective than anything else. And Loki was discovering he would do much for the opportunity to sleep beside Tony Stark. 

He followed. 

They all took turns changing behind the screen that hid what had been Frigga's wardrobe, and although his throat tightened, he didn't feel himself unraveling, the way he once might have. 

He even managed to find it endearing when a mostly-asleep Tony encountered Loki's hand with his own and pulled it in towards his chest, that part of the man that had been so vulnerable for so long. 

Bruce's slitted eyes caught his over the engineer's body, frowning as if he'd expected Loki to snatch that hand away. Then he looked thoughtful, much as Rhodey had done. 

Loki took a breath, wiggled his hand a little, letting it settle more comfortably against Tony's chest, and closed his eyes, ignoring the issue for the moment. 

He found it surprisingly easy, from there, to fall asleep. 

* * *

The next morning, they went to the secret-keeper, usual disguises in place until they got inside. Hogun was there, the secret-keeper being his grandmother, and the reason Vanaheim had been attacked after Loki's rather disastrous first turn on the throne. 

Loki hadn't sat there long enough to come here and take on the secrets that came with the throne, but some magic tied her to the position, let her know when Gungnir changed hands. She'd sent for him, and that had attracted attention. 

Now no one held Gungnir, or the secrets. 

Hogun's eyes widened as the glamour dropped. "Loki is here!" 

"I know, my friend," Thor said, holding up a hand to forestall any hasty action. "He hid many things from me, but he did what he thought best, and now, when the time has come for things to be revealed, he has told me the truth. My father... is dead. But my brother is alive. And who better to keep the most closely-guarded secrets of all the realms?" 

Hogun frowned, then he turned to the curtain that hung across a doorway at the far side of the room. "Both princes are here," he hissed. 

The secret-keeper pushed the curtain aside, looking at them with steely eyes. "I felt Odin die," she told them. "Who now is King of Asgard?" 

Thor looked to Loki. 

"No one," Loki told her truthfully. 

"There must be one," she told them. "An heir. I cannot give the secrets to just anyone." 

"There have been two," Loki reminded her. "Odin and Frigga both knew them." 

"Ah, but she sat the throne when he slept," the secret-keeper said. "I can give this knowledge only to the person who sits on the throne of the Nine." She looked harried, rather than scared, when she said, "If that is no one, then Ragnarok must be upon us." 

"It must be. Odin was part of those prophecies, and he is gone. Frigga, and she is gone." Loki shot a glance at Tony. "The crimson cock crows over Jotunheim. It is time." 

Hogun frowned at Thor. "You are Odin's sons, and Odin named you his heir." 

"And I declined it, saying that Loki would sit the throne better." 

"Then you." Hogun's eyes drilled into Loki now. 

"I declined as well, knowing its weight, offering the place to Heimdall. When he declined, the two of us... concluded that the monarchy had outlived its usefulness, and formed a council of sorts." 

"But you held the throne when last Odin slept," the secret-keeper said to Loki. "Frigga passed it to you. I summoned you, but you did not come. The secrets should have been yours then." 

Thor nodded. "If the knowledge must pass to only one, let it be to Loki. He will tell me, if I need know." 

Hogun looked like he wanted to object, but was too much in the habit of respecting Thor's commands. Loki would have respected him rather more if he'd spoken up. 

The secret-keeper held the curtain open for Loki. 

Loki followed her in. 

* * *

She told him many things, but what was most interesting was what she did not say. What he needed to know. 

"And the gems?" he asked at last. "The Infinity Stones?" 

"Of space, mind, and reality, you know," she reminded him. "Of power, I do not know. It has never passed through Asgard's ownership. So you seek time, and soul?" 

"I do," he answered. He knew where the Power Gem resided. Heimdall had spotted its passage from hand to hand as he watched the Reality Gem in its current home. 

"These are the secrets I have been entrusted with," she told him, "that none may realize how very obvious the answers truly are. Where resides the power, where in all the Realms, to see the future? To know the past? To weave the threads of fate?" 

"Nornheim," Loki breathed. "The Norns." Where, then, was Soul? 

"Then," she said, "where in all the Realms rests the power to witness souls, to know where each and every thinking person is whenever they care to look?" 

Loki's eyes widened. He did not say the name. He did not want to draw the man's attention. The gem's attention. On the off-chance that he was not already looking. 

"Then," said the secret-keeper, patting Loki's hand, "you know the deepest secrets of the Realms. Use them well." She stood, walking deeper into her dwelling, leaving him staring at nothing, going over and over it in his mind. 

Heimdall held the gem. 

The Aether had been brought through the Bifrost, uncontrolled, possessing a human body. Whatever containment the Soul Gem had, it might be damaged. 

Small wonder that Odin had been so angry at Jane's sudden arrival. Thankfully, between Loki's knowledge and the Convergence, they had not passed that way again until the Aether had been contained. 

Small wonder that Heimdall had insisted the Aether be sent away. Difficult enough to avoid the Tesseract and the Soul Gem coming into contact while on the same world. But _three?_

Heimdall, and Asgard, were in danger. 

If they got through this, Loki would flay Heimdall for not telling him. 

But Loki knew that some secrets, about a person's nature, about their power, about what their senses told them that no one else knew - some secrets stuck in the throat. 

Loki roused himself. They had work to do. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle for the Soul Gem, part the first

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we're looking at 7 or 8 chapters here. I am nearly always wrong about that sort of estimate, but at the very least be assured that the next chapter will resolve the battle and most of the plot and we can get back to the more love/romance focused stuff.

Loki shielded himself from Heimdall's sight as he walked out through the curtain again, to the waiting crowd. 

"Heimdall has the Soul Gem," he told them all without preface. "He always has. But it may not be easy to get it from him. It is as sentient as the Mind Gem, and its containment has been compromised, of late. The Casket, the Aether, the breaking of the Bifrost... it was never meant to withstand all this, and as of late, Heimdall's powers have been growing. The boundary between man and artifact has been blurring. He sees more. He dares more. The man challenged Odin's rule, he took a second look at my character. I may have used these to my advantage, but knowing the Soul Gem is in play, they are none of them good signs." 

"What do we do?" Thor asked. 

"We must go back to Asgard. By my secret ways. Our other keeper of the paths is... compromised. But first we must be ready. If we can, we'll need a shield. One that can stop the gem from plucking out our souls." 

"Can such a thing be made?" Hogun asked. 

"I have learned, over time, how to shield myself from Heimdall's sight," Loki said. "Now that I know more of that sight, from whence it comes, I may be able to create something more potent." 

Tony made a noise in his throat. "Hang on, this thing plucks out people's _souls?_ " 

"That is its goal," Loki agreed. "But it may also possess them, use them for a time. At a greater cost. It would much prefer to simply pluck, and contain." 

"Shit," was Tony's only reply. 

Bruce frowned. "Would blocking this thing's powers involve blocking its gamma signature? All the stones have them, is that a big part of how they operate, or just incidental?" 

Loki fell into conversation with him, going over possibilities and details, Tony joining in when it came to practicalities. Thor led the way back to his rooms, he and Roz conferring on the business that was shepherding scientists and mages. 

To make the first shield, they needed very little that was not part of Tony and Roz's gear or the machinery Loki and Bruce had brought from Nidavellir, but they would need one for each person that would be going to Asgard to retrieve the Soul Gem. 

Loki turned over the little device in his hands. 

"I'm assuming more would be better here," Tony said bluntly. "And we geared up for a reason. We're not letting you do this on your own." 

The hardness in Tony's eyes said that he knew Loki had been thinking about taking the device and leaving, not risking anyone else. The quicker the stone could be contained, now, the better. 

But Loki had failed enough times now by going it alone, by failing to share his plans. 

If Heimdall deserved any consideration from him, any respect in this unpleasant turn of events, it was that Loki remember that lesson, remember their agreement. To do nothing irrevocable for Asgard's fate without consulting others. 

"Then we will return to Nidavellir," Loki agreed. "Whoever among you wishes to join me in this venture must have one." 

* * *

They hiked through the hills of Vanaheim, seeking the spot where the World Tree's branches pierced the fabric of the landscape, making a way between Vanaheim and Nidavellir. 

It wasn't a particularly tricky one, as the Secret Ways went; there had never been hostilities between the two realms, not in living memory, and the branches tended to wither, the holes shrink and hide themselves, in times of war. But very few knew where the branches were in Vanaheim, even so; they were difficult to find without a particularly finely-tuned sense of magic, and as the home of the Secret-Keeper, the realm was protected, in many ways, more closely than Asgard. 

The whole party followed Loki. 

It was strange. Thor following him, Thor coming along with Loki and his friends (or at least Loki, his friend Tony, and Tony's friends, who followed Loki's lead because Tony did). 

It was strange to have a friend who looked to him first, and to Thor last. 

It was strange to have a friend. 

It was strange to be part of a war party who would, on the main, rather discuss magic, strategy and trickery than tell stories and boast of their prowess. The knot of conversation wound tight around Loki, and left Thor orbiting the edges. But Loki spent too much time involved in conversation for that to bother him. 

Loki wondered if this was what it would have been like to be Thor. And When Loki did find a moment to catch Thor's eye, he could see, in that glance, the Thunderer wondering if this was what it had been like to be Loki. 

"So this Soul Gem," Tony was asking. "What's it look like? It's on this Heimdall's person somewhere, right?" 

"Heimdall's armor, of late, has featured an orange gem in the center of the breastplate," Loki told them. "The color of his eyes when he uses his power to gaze across the realms. I had not thought much of it, before I learned the location of the Soul Gem, but now I think on it, it has seemed to shine brighter when Heimdall is using his vision more deeply than usual. His older armors must have hidden it, but Odin must have thought it needed a sharper watch put on it as Ragnarok approached." 

Bruce made a thoughtful noise. "So it's probably the greatest, most shameless secret in the galaxy that's the glowing centerpiece of someone's chest armor," he commented. 

"Yeah," said Tony, "and this is the galaxy with _me_ in it." 

"Well, you keep giving away arc reactors," Roz commented, "there's not gonna be much secret left about yours, soon enough." 

Tony shrugged. "Fair," he said. He turned back to Loki. "So what's our play? How do we contain this thing if however it's being contained now is failing?" 

Loki thought, looking off into the distance. "There is no foolproof way, no permanent solution," he said, "and never have I seen better than the being that became Vision. The Soul Gem is sentient, the same principles apply. But I doubt that it would be feasible to reproduce that effect." 

Tony stiffened as Loki spoke. "I am _not_ giving FRIDAY to this thing, come on, I only just got her settled into the armor." He spoke as if he expected Loki to disagree. But Loki recognized that tone. 

"She is your child," Loki assured him, as gently as he could manage. "Even if we were to find a way to make the phenomenon repeatable, she is not of age. She cannot consent to this. It would be a self-sacrifice, a remaking of her being. Only a grown creature can make that choice." 

"Yeah?" Tony asked, so much behind it. _Why do you sound like you understand this part of my life, too?_

"I too have known something of the responsibilities of parenthood," he murmured cryptically, and left it at that. But it made him think. 

_Oh, Norns, a lost baby of another species, cold-blooded, quick-tongued. Something about that has always felt a little too familiar, a little too right._

The memories shook him, now, of finding the egg and holding it in his hands and feeling it kin, cold-blooded and strange though it was. 

Then Tony casually knocked his shoulder against Loki's own, jostling him out of the reverie. "Hey, fearless leader," he said. "Are we there yet?" 

Loki could only laugh. 

* * *

Loki could tell that Tony wished they could spend more time on Nidavellir, wanted to linger over every unfamiliar piece of equipment or manufacturing process. But they got their shielding devices, and they got out. 

Still, they had taken too long. Loki's spirits sank as the group stepped through the second of Yggdrasil's branches, and onto Asgard. 

They were surrounded. A company of Einherjar, Loki had been prepared for, but not _dragons._ They ringed the tiny island where the branch touched Asgard. 

He recognized Nidhogg, and, Norns help him, Jor. 

"We are too late," Loki told his followers. "Heimdall has been expecting us." 

Tony frowned. "I thought you said he didn't know about your little space-travel backdoors?" 

"He did not," Loki answered. "But Jormungandr knew." 

"Who?" 

"The green one. He helped me find the rifts, long ago. He likes to visit other realms, and particularly enjoys Loch Ness." 

"One of these dragons is your friend?" Bruce asked. 

"My foster son," Loki corrected. "But we may have to kill him, today. Dragons are deadly when they wish to be, and will not go down easily. Stay clear of the dragons' teeth." 

"Planning on it," Tony said, lowering his helmet to complete his armor. "Why teeth in particular?" 

"They are incredibly venomous," Loki warned, "even to the gods of Asgard." 

"Aye," said Thor. "Very few in the Realms would willingly face a dragon." He conjured his own helmet, which, even in battle, he rarely wore. But this? This was dragons. 

"All right," said Roz gamely, strapping mere kevlar tight around her wrists, "I'll do my best to stay out of their way." 

Bruce? Well. Hulk just roared. 

* * *

The Einherjar were strong, and although they wouldn't have proved too much of a challenge on their own, the most powerful of their group were busy fighting off the dragons. 

Nidhogg, king of the bottom surface of the disc that was Asgard, was a great black reptile with a head like a crocodile, a body just too thick to look like a snake's, and wings with fierce claws at their tips. He could encircle the island on his own, he was so big, but with his prince and Jormungandr beside him, he didn't need to. 

Jor was green, more lithe and snakelike, and the prince, dark olive gray-green. They were not as intimidating as the king dragon who made the ground tremble with each step, but at the same time, they were easier to lose track of, and Loki knew that Jor was tricky, like himself. 

Tony scanned for the gem using the detector Bruce and he had rigged into his suit, flying high, keeping the whole fight in his scope. The prince snapped at him as he rose, but Iron Man was faster, and Odin's sons were apparently a higher priority for the other two dragons, who stayed below. 

Hulk dealt with the Einherjar in fairly short order, apparently finding them annoying, by the tone of his grumbles, and then leapt to grab hold of the prince, pulling the grey dragon down and away from Iron Man. The dragon twisted and struck, biting down, and Hulk howled in pain, wringing the reptile's neck, until they both fell to earth in a dazed tangle of gray-green, writhing flesh. 

"Ouch," Tony muttered over the comms. "You think that'll be a problem?" He didn't sound overly concerned. 

"If anyone of Earth can survive a dragon's venom, it is Hulk," Thor said heartily as he threw Mjolnir at Nidhogg. 

"Hulk survives," Loki agreed. "It is what he does." 

Loki and Jor eyed each other warily, both knowing the other well enough that they knew better than to think the best defense was a good offense. Keeping an eye out and keeping an open mind was always going to be the best defense. 

Roz hid. _Smart woman. Good instincts._

"Think I've found your wayward gatekeeper," Tony told the others. "Far side of the island. Gonna try to get him out of his armor. Feels weird, though. Wrong. Cannibalistic, almost. Kind of like a clam trying to pry open another clam." 

"If you make me laugh, you're gonna give away my position," Roz hissed at him, half-laughing already. 

Jor pounced, and Loki's illusory self dissolved. Jor sniffed, searching out the true position of his prey. The green dragon zeroed in on Roz's position, and prepared to strike. 

Roz let fly a repulsor blast straight into his face, then rolled away, hiding again. Jormungandr was stunned, but that would not last long. Loki moved in, then, ice spikes forming around his hands, a weapon even Jor would not expect from him. Loki jabbed him in the belly, hating himself for it. For being Jotunn, for deceiving and injuring his son. For the whole blasted knot that was his life. 

Jor lashed out with his tail, knocking Loki back, away, down the rocky slope. He hissed in pain. And his huge green head turned back to seek Roz's new hiding place. 

Loki did not think he would be able to save her this time. He watched Jor coil, preparing to strike, feeling a sick heaviness in his belly. Jor was not a murderer. Not a fighter. But if he did this, he would have to live with it. 

Loki scrambled up the slope as fast as he could manage, not fast enough. 

Jor's head whipped forward, fangs out. 

A flash of red quick as lightning hit the ground, Thor standing over Roz, his great wide shoulders shielding her. Jor's teeth sinking in. 

"Thor!" Loki yelled. _No. Not him. Not Thor. This is worse._

"That was stupid," Roz hissed up at Thor. "Why did you do that?" 

Loki, finding himself there, finally (too late), took out a dagger and sliced a tendon in Jor's jaw, prying his teeth out of Thor's back and shoving him away. Jor writhed down the slope, intentionally or not leaving them to their horror at what had happened to Thor. 

"Because," Thor was gasping, slumping down to the ground, "one of us must return to Jane. One of us must be with her. And you... were doing better at that." 

Roz huffed, shoving him down none too gently onto his side, peering at the deep wounds in his shoulder. "Both," she spat. "You idiot. She needs us _both_ to come back." She turned to Loki. "What can we do for him?" 

"My magic will not work for this," he said dully. "And the healing rooms are too far from here, even if we could manage to get past Heimdall and Nidhogg." 

"Well, I'm not giving up," she told him. "How does it kill? The heart, the nerves, the blood?" 

"Nerves," he told her. "Paralysis." 

"Okay, okay," Roz said, looking around her as if the answer might be laying on the ground nearby. Then she looked at Thor's face, cupping it with one hand. "Just keep breathing, okay?" she told him. "I'm going to find a way to save you, but for now, just keep breathing. For me. For Jane." 

Thor nodded, already panting, labored. 

"Okay, I don't know what works as a stimulant for Aesir. Do you know the herbs here? Is there one you know to chew when you're tired, but need to keep going?" 

"It won't save him," Loki said, but he moved to uproot the nearest specimen of what she'd described." 

"But it might buy him time," she said, beckoning for it. "The root, raw? How much? Give him twice whatever's normal." 

Loki wiped his dagger clean of Jor's blood and cut two slices of the white, bitter, slightly stringy root. Thor reached for it, getting it into his own mouth, at least. Which meant that they had time. Time for what, Loki did not know. 

"So you've never learned how to make antivenom against these bites?" Roz asked, watching him closely. 

"No, we have been allied with the dragons for centuries, there has been no need. How is it done on Midgard?" 

Roz took a gasping breath. "It takes months. Normally we take a large animal, a horse or sheep, and inject them with small amounts of venom over a long time period until they start producing antibodies. Then we extract those antibodies from their blood and inject them into the patient. But we have no time for that now." 

Loki cast a sideways glance at the serpent. "Jor has bitten me many times," he said, sounding as if he were far away. "Starting shortly after he hatched, when he had little venom in him. It never seemed to hurt me much, so I let him, as he grew. I thought it simply because he was still young, but perhaps not. Would my blood be of any use to Thor?" 

Roz blinked at him, then shook herself a little. "Have you given him a transfusion before? I don't know how blood types work in Asgardians, do you have types?" 

"I am not Asgardian," Loki told her, and her head drooped, "but," he continued, "my species are shapeshifters and mimics, I lived most of my life as an Asgardian, and in this shape I have shared blood with Thor without doing him harm." 

"That'll have to be good enough," Roz snapped, reaching out and uncovering Loki's forearm up past the elbow. Loki was, for a moment, forcefully drawn back to the moment when he had first suspected that he was not of Asgard, but of Jotunheim. "You ready?" she asked, needle poised. 

_Aesir,_ Loki told his bones and blood. _I am Aesir, and Thor's kin. My blood is like his._

"Yes," he said. 

Roz plunged the needle in, taped it down, ran the tubing to a bag of saline which she hung up from a convenient branch, then ran the bag's tubing to a needle in Thor's arm. Loki watched his blood turn the bag red, flow from there into his brother. 

Thor had never approved of his raising Jormungandr. The serpent, when young, had needed much care, and could not be left for their adventures with Fandral and Sif. The truth was, Loki had preferred Jor's company to that of Thor and his friends. Jor was an excuse, more often than not. 

Now Loki and Jor's time together might save Thor's life. 

Loki took no pleasure in that irony. He only hoped. 

He watched Roz crouch over Thor, stroking the hair back from his face, murmuring small encouraging things. "Stay with me, Thor," she said. "You have to come back to Jane. She'll be so angry if I don't bring you back in one piece." 

"I can see why she chose you," Thor rumbled in return. "You are just as full of fire and stars as either one of us, but you get less lost in them." 

Roz smiled. "Your breathing sounds better already," she commented. 

"The pain lessens," he told her. "Now go! Continue the fight. I will be well." 

She leaned down to kiss him hard, surprising them both, but she did not pause again before leaving to join the battle between Iron Man, Heimdall and Jormungandr. 

Behind Loki, he could hear Nidhogg stirring, shaking off Mjolnir's last blow. 

Perhaps... perhaps, using only illusion, Loki could fool the dragon, misdirect him, all without leaving his brother's side or stopping the flow of life-saving blood. 

Loki created images of the two running away, willing Nidhogg to follow, but Loki's illusions could not fool a sense of smell. The dragon swept his head this way and that, refused to follow the images. Loki had no time to do anything more but reinforce their invisibility before Nidhogg came in their direction, and in turning, placed his great hindfoot squarely upon Loki. 

"I may need help here!" he hissed into the comms. 

Above him, Loki saw Iron Man streak across the sky, but Tony was not coming to help. He turned about to face Jor, who had followed him into flight. "Sorry, princess," came his voice, "gotta take care of this first." He dived down and repulsored Jor right in the roof of the mouth. 

Loki could do nothing but watch, and watch he did. 

_Oh._

_Look at him soar._

_He is no lovestruck fool._

As soon as the words crossed his mind, they tasted bitter. Was love meant for those like them? Were they even built for it? 

Then an invisible Mjolnir struck Nidhogg on the jaw, the dragon stepped away, and after a moment spent disentangling themselves from tubing and giving Thor's healing a boost now that he was no longer actively dying, the battle was rejoined and Loki thought of it no more. 


	6. Chapter 6

So... this was a new one. 

Damn _dragons._

This Jor... Loki's _foster kid,_ and how fucked up was it that Loki had to fight him now? The thought of having to fight Harley made Tony physically ill, and he'd only known him for a couple years now. Talked to him once in a while. Loki had known Jor for... probably longer than Stark Industries had been a thing. Raised him from an _egg._

But damn, the kid could take a beating. 

He had a couple holes in his gut and a slice behind his jaw, which was hanging at a funny angle. He'd taken a couple of major repulsor hits. But he still packed a punch, especially with that quick, heavy and muscular tail. 

It whipped around to hit Tony when the armor came in range to get in a hit, and Tony gave his boot repulsors a boost to get the hell out of dodge, but not quite quick enough. The blow caught his boots, and something jostled loose, and Iron Man fell out of the sky. 

It wasn't like Rhodey. Wasn't like lockdown, or the icing problem. He still had power, stabilizers, flaps, and wasn't that high off the ground. But still, it was terrifying, falling from the sky encased in a gold brick. ...And right now Tony kind of hated Rhodey for putting that image in his head. 

Iron Man tumbled, grasped, ended up suspended by the metal fingers of one hand from a cliff. 

"Little help?" he asked the others over comms. 

Loki... just strolled by, on the slope above him. Hardly sparing him a glance. 

Tony gaped briefly. 

_I should not find that hot... but yep. Definitely do._

_Kinda like him grabbing me by the throat and throwing me out my own window, if we're being completely honest._

_What is it with him and me and long dropoffs and disdainful looks?_

_Actually maybe it's more complicated than disdain, maybe he just generally has more important things to think about right now._

Come to think of it, who knew if that was really Loki, after all, or just one of his little intangible distractions? Maybe he wasn't actually in a position to help. 

Then there was a roar, interrupting his thoughts, and a giant green arm grabbing him from behind and heaving him up the slope. 

Tony scrambled to his feet, giving Hulk's arm a gentle pat. "Good to see you, Big Guy," he said. "Not letting a little snakebite get you down, huh?" 

Hulk just grumbled at him, and wandered off in the direction of where Nidhogg still searched for a weakened Thor. 

Without his boot repulsors, Tony couldn't go up in the sky to see how the fight was going, but last he'd seen Roz, she'd been going up against Heimdall on her own. No matter how amazing a SHIELD agent she was, that was not a favorable position for her. 

Sure enough, it was her voice over the comms as he jogged back in her direction. "Guys, we're losing this one. We've gotta find a way to turn the tide." 

"Yes, we are aware," Loki said in something impressively like a bored drawl for how out of breath he clearly was. 

Tony just... looked around, and maybe that was a mistake, because they were fighting in midday light with cold, strange stars above their heads and they were fucking losing to a bunch of huge alien reptiles.... and Tony could feel himself starting to panic at the familiarity, but he'd gotten out of that okay. He could do this, too. Hulk was here to catch him if he fell. 

"It's too bad these guys don't have an off switch the way the Chitauri did," Tony blurted. 

Loki made a surprised sound. "Oh, but they do, now that I think of it." 

Tony was just coming over the ridge, just coming in view of where Roz stood against Heimdall, where Loki kept Heimdall just occupied enough with his throwing knives to give the human a chance. And when he saw Loki's face, he knew something was up. 

Something was _wrong,_ or about to be. 

Loki was plotting, moving his hands in some kind of casting, and it was going to be bad, Tony felt it in his bones. 

But Tony knew he couldn't afford to stop Loki. Knew that if Loki had something, some way to win, that the galaxy could not afford to let the opportunity pass. 

Even though Tony knew that look. Recognized it. This was Loki laying down on the wire. 

It was like looking in a mirror, and then Loki looked back at Tony for just the barest moment, and Suddenly Tony Knew. 

It was like looking in a fucking mirror of himself as he flew through the portal and with that last bit of attention, that last moment to say goodbye, Loki was looking to him the way he'd thought of Pepper. 

Loki fucking loved him, for some unknowable godly reason, and he might be realizing it just too late. 

Loki reached for his shielding apparatus, and flicked it off. 

Tony's heart stalled in his chest, as if the reactor had gone wonky, if he'd still had it inside him. 

A green spark was pulled out of Loki's chest, and the god collapsed. So that was what "plucked out" looked like, some irrepressibly curious part of Tony's brain said. But the rest of him felt empty, waiting for something, waiting for that to suddenly not have happened. 

A yellow spark was torn out of Heimdall's chest, above the gem in his breastplate, as if magnetically drawn to the green spark. Or gravitationally. The two sparks orbited each other like twin suns, closer and faster until they were both sucked, together, into the vortex that was the Soul Gem. 

Heimdall collapsed. The gem fell out of its place in his breastplate. Nidhogg and Jor sagged as if their strings had been cut. 

Which, perhaps, was what had happened. 

The stone had lost its wielder. Its connection to the world around it. 

But _Loki._

Loki, who'd maybe loved him. 

Loki, who'd propped him up, when everyone else had fallen, or left. 

Tony suddenly needed to see with his own eyes. His metal fingers scrambled with the latches on his helmet. He fell to his knees beside Loki's body. It breathed, slowly, shallowly, but it breathed. 

That made it almost worse that Tony could tell there was no one there. 

Thor made his way over, followed by Jor and the big black dragon, now slow and placid, with shocked, sad eyes. 

"Is that it?" Tony asked Thor bluntly. "That thing just sucks out their souls, and there's nothing we can do?" 

"I would not trust myself to wield the stone, if Heimdall failed," Thor told him. "All this was because the stone can no longer be controlled. If we were to pick it up, wield its power, all this would likely only have to be done over again. Only you would have to fight me, without Loki." 

"That's not good enough!" Tony spat, standing, yelling in the Thunderer's face. "There has to be another answer!" 

Hulk came bounding over then, at the sound of Tony's anger. He growled at Thor, seeing Tony doing the same. 

"I'm not going to let another fucking one of those Infinity Stones steal another fucking one of the people I care about! The Tesseract had my dad wrapped around its little finger! The Mind Gem _killed Jarvis!_ This little turd of a space stone does not get to take _Loki_ from me too!" 

Hulk's gaze followed the direction of Tony's pointing finger, now. He found the little orange gem, and sniffed it, then sneered as if it smelled bad, rotten. 

He drew back, and punched it, hard as he could. It skittered away, deflected off the shield where it clung invisibly to his skin. 

"The Infinity Stones cannot be destroyed," Thor tried to tell him, but his heart wasn't in it. "Many have tried, since the dawn of time. None have succeeded." 

Hulk only got angrier at the little thing. It glowed, seemingly in response to his glare. Tony stared, not daring to hope. Hulk punched it again, shaking the whole island, making a crater, jostling stones loose to roll down the sloped ground, but the Soul Gem remained. 

Hulk screamed at the sky, and then he picked up the stone, pressing it between his hands, watching the shield repel it. Pushing harder. Willing it to give. 

The edges of the shield sparked, and Tony's guts gave a little lurch, knowing that something was going to happen between this unstoppable force and this immovable object, something unprecedented, and given how things had been going recently, probably something terrible. "Hulk..." he started. "Buddy...." 

The shield gave. The stone met Hulk's skin. It slipped inside his skin, as if the green of his flesh were an ocean and the gem merely a goldfish. It settled under the skin at his throat, glowing there, perched above his collarbones, and Hulk.... 

Hulk's eyes had lost focus, and he stared up at the stars, seeing nothing. 

"NO!" Tony screamed, voice breaking. "NO, IT CAN'T HAVE BOTH OF YOU, IT CAN'T HAVE YOU, TOO!" He forced his legs to move, stumbling towards the Hulk. 

But then Hulk focused again, looking down at Tony with eyes glowing brightly orange, and said, "No, Tony. _Hulk_ has _it._ " 

Great green fingers found the gem at his throat, and drew out two sparks, yellow and green. Great green hands reached out to Loki and Heimdall, gently pushing the sparks back into their places. 

Loki gasped. 

Heimdall's eyes opened, a deep, dark brown. 

Tony felt weak, only the armor around him keeping him standing. 

"Loki!" Thor exclaimed. "Heimdall! You are restored! Are you well?" 

"Well enough," Loki said, examining his own hands as if trying to find his place in them again. 

"I am blind," Heimdall commented. "Blind as any other god or mortal. It has been many years. I had forgotten." 

"Sit on the throne any time you like," Loki invited with a glint in his eye. 

"I may take you up on that," Heimdall told him with a rueful smile. "This will be... an adjustment." 

"Hulk," Tony managed to say. "Buddy. And Loki. You're... you're okay?" He felt a little faint. 

"Hey," Roz said, putting on her mad-scientist-wrangling face. "Tony. Looks like things are under control, so why don't you take off the armor, sit, have a drink?" She waved a canteen in front of him. 

He couldn't parse that yet, not until he knew. 

"Hulk fine," Hulk sighed impatiently. "Loki fine. Sit." 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not your puppy," Tony said, letting the armor fold back. 

Hulk snorted as if he remembered exactly how many times Tony had used the same kind of pet commands on him. 

"I am well," Loki said absently. "But I must see to Jor." 

Tony cringed. "Yeah," he agreed, sitting a little gingerly on the rocky ground. "Uh, sorry about that beatdown," he told the dragons. 

"It was necessary," rumbled the huge black dragon, before setting his head down on folded wings. 

"Thor, help me with this," Loki said, examining Jormungandr's jaw. "I'm sorry, Jor, this is going to hurt." 

Bruce arrived back on the scene around then, Roz handing him pants without a word. He quickly put them on. The gem was nowhere in sight. 

"Hey, where'd that thing go? You know, the one we came all this way to find?" Tony asked. 

"I think it went... wherever the rest of Hulk goes," Bruce said as he sat down beside Tony. "I'll have to see if I radiate its gamma signature now, along with Hulk's." 

Tony felt better for sitting and drinking water and watching his friends alive and going about their business, and his brain was beginning to get back up to speed. "So... how did we not know that Hulk's a perfect Soul Gem trap? Anyone know why that worked, by the way?" 

"To contain and use the Infinity Stones," Heimdall said, "there must be two elements - a constructed container and a willing consciousness. Both Vision and Hulk act in both capacities, as few others could." 

"And that's all we needed? Why didn't we just ask Bruce in the first place?" 

"It is... slightly more complicated than that," Loki said dryly. "He was not made specifically to be a container for a gem, as Vision was. Even if I had thought of it, I would have had no reason to believe it might work." 

"And a gem is matched carefully with its wielder," Heimdall added, "to have qualities that might limit that stone's power." 

"Oh," said Loki. "I see." 

"Yeah, you said how Jarvis was the embodiment of limits on power, but more specifically, he was the embodiment of limits I needed on _me._ On genius. On mind. He was pure organized mind." 

"So you're saying, what?" Bruce asked. "That my soul is somehow... organized?" 

"Divided into neat categories, disciplined," Loki clarified. "You moderate your emotions as a constant practice. And Hulk is... pure, in a certain way. Driven by simple, integral motivations. He is not easy to corrupt, at the heart of him." 

"Thanks... I think?" Bruce said, still frowning. 

"We are all of us... extraordinary," Loki said, looking at his hands again, but this time they were covered in Jor's blood. Somehow Tony knew that Loki was remembering that blue color his skin had turned in response to the phrase "evil hands." "All of us gods, or monsters, or insignificant, depending on the circumstances." 

"I think he's trying to say you're in good company, either way," Tony guessed. 

Bruce looked between the two of them, heroes, mass murderers, friends. "Yeah," he said. "I guess I am, at that." 

"I am sorry, your majesty," Loki told Nidhogg. "I will not be able to revive your son." 

The dragon nodded. "We always knew that grief would come on the wings of Ragnarok," he said. 

Bruce looked slightly sick at the thought of how that had happened. 

"You did what you could," the king continued. "One life, balanced against the fall of Asgard - it is better than I expected." His sigh was heavy. "It is still too much." 

"Aye," Thor agreed. "He will be missed. Songs will be sung in our halls." 

"Do you go there now?" Nidhogg asked. "I would carry you." 

"We should rest there a night," Loki agreed. "Before we travel between worlds again." 

"I'll help," Jor said. "Father, I can carry you. And one other, if you wish." 

"Doctor Banner," Loki asked, holding out a hand. "Would you like to fly?" 

Tony was vaguely disappointed not to be the one Loki asked, even though he flew every day, but mostly he was just tired, like, difficult-to-stay-upright tired, and didn't think he could survive a fall from a flying dragon. 

"So how's this gonna work?" he asked in the direction of Nidhogg and Thor. 

Thor looked at the two tired humans Nidhogg would have to carry, in addition to himself. "Perhaps we could use my cape as a sling?" he suggested. 

So they tied a strong knot, and Nidhogg took it between his teeth, and the three settled into it for the journey to the palace. 

Tony wanted to look at the scenery of Asgard as they approached, but the motion of the fabric and his own exhaustion lulled him to sleep. 

* * *

The two dragons kept steady pace over the water as they worked their way towards a high golden spire. On Jormungandr's neck, Bruce sat ahead, and Loki behind, keeping watch that all was well with the scientist, the beast and the gem. But there was another reason he'd asked Bruce to join him here. 

"There is a question I must ask you," Loki began. 

"Is this about you and Tony?" Bruce asked. "Because Hulk told me he'd seen a connection between you. Which... it's weird, getting such clear messages from him. But he seems to see a lot more now." 

"Yes," Loki admitted. "Yes, there's a connection. At least, I hope. But before I pursue it, I must ask. Are you and Tony...." 

As the silence drew out, Bruce's eyes widened, realizing what Loki must mean. "What? No, it's not like that! No, we'd drive each other crazy if we tried to be a couple. ...Crazier. No, it's not like that." _Tony smiles quick and shattered, and my love smiles slow and sweet. Tony helps, but he's not... he's not her._ "And anyway, I don't know if I'm ready to try again, after what happened between me and Natasha." _She tricked me. She used me. She forced me. Forced the Hulk out of me. Distracted me with a kiss. I'm not ready to trust that way again. But Tony, Tony is safe. I understand him, through and through. He doesn't need that from me._ "So if you want to be that for Tony, it won't change anything between him and me." 

Loki blinked in confusion. "But what you have, it's...." 

_Profound. Loving. You fascinate each other. You trust._

"He's my best friend," Bruce said, answering the expressions on Loki's face. "And I'm one of his. So is Rhodey. And Tony, well, he needs as many people like that as he can get. Not very many people understand him well enough to see him for what he is. A lot of people think they get him. Most of those people have only fear or contempt. The people who really do see him... see his heart... yeah, we love him. It's hard not to." 

Loki closed his eyes against the truth and the sympathy he could see in Bruce's eyes, hear in the rumbling of the beast below his words, slow and ponderous beats of pure emotion. But he nodded. "And with those of us that can follow his thoughts..." 

Bruce chuckled. "Damn near impossible." After a long moment, he reached out and patted Loki's arm. "He needs more love in his life. Whatever form that takes." 

He wasn't the type to threaten, but below his words the Hulk growled, reminding Loki what he could do to the god, what he would do in defense of Tony. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that the mythical Ragnarok includes, but is not limited to:  
> -Loki leading Jotuns against Asgard  
> -the breaking of the Bifrost  
> -the death of Odin  
> -a crimson cock crowing over Jotunheim  
> -Jormungandr biting Thor and Thor making it only a few steps before collapsing  
> -Loki and Heimdall killing each other  
> -Nidhogg flying away, mouth full of bodies
> 
> One more chapter to go! I'm pretty sure this time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter, but it's what I got done today, so heck, I'm posting it all! Happy last chapter!

Tony was nearly asleep on his feet when they arrived, and frankly, Loki wasn't much better off. The spell to disguise himself as he walked through the palace was nearly automatic. Apparently so was the well-trodden path to his old chambers, regardless of the fact that Tony Stark was on his arm and should have been offered a guest suite. 

This was better. This was faster. Tony wouldn't mind, not after the previous night. 

Bruce just watched them go with a smirk, stuck close to Heimdall, as the man seemed twitchy without all the knowledge of the galaxy at his command. "Hulk says the Realms are fine," Bruce would offer occasionally. 

Tony kicked off his shoes and tumbled into bed beside Loki without a word, snuggling up to him seemingly automatically. 

It had been a long day, but it was over, and Loki let himself go. 

* * *

For the second time in as many days, Loki woke up with his arm forcibly pulled across Tony Stark's body, the whole length of his front snugged up against Tony's back. 

This time, though, there was nowhere he particularly needed to be, nothing to distract him from the questions that this raised. 

_Is this love?_

That one was easy enough, really. He loved Tony Stark enough that both the man's best friends, as well as the Soul Gem, could see it clearly. 

_Am I in love?_

That one was trickier. 

_Is this being in love? If I see my own feelings reflected in the way the Hulk orients himself to Iron Man, keeps him in his mind as he goes about being a force of destruction? If I hear my own doubts, my own self-restrictions, in the way Banner denies, distances, steps aside to make way for others?_

_Part of me is in love. But knowing what I do, having seen what I have seen, being what I am, I could never commit the entirety of my being to such a feeling._

_Perhaps I could be like him, like Bruce, both in love and not, both a monster and a good man. But just selfish enough to step into the place Banner refuses. Just that much more a monster._

Loki sighed, made up his mind to be selfish, and held Tony closer. 

* * *

Tony woke up with a long, slim body tucked up behind his in bed. 

There was never a moment where he actively assumed it was Pepper, but there was a long moment, still on the edge of sleep, when he was still trying to figure out whether it was Pepper, and what he had done. 

The room wasn't one of his. It was kind of... not gaudy, quite, but odd, in a way that was somehow a sibling of gaudiness. And there was too much clutter for it to be a hotel. 

Tony Stark very rarely went home with anyone else. And since Afghanistan, never. 

He stretched a little, trying to wake up, orient himself in time. His left ankle was sore. There'd been a battle.... 

Of course. Loki. Asgard. Tony immediately went limp again, satisfied that he'd done nothing more idiotic than usual. That he was with someone he trusted. 

Whether anyone else would see it that way... wasn't the point. 

But then there was the question, also, of what this was. Of what Loki meant by inviting Tony into what was, now that he looked at it in the proper light, clearly where Loki had spent his downtime for many years. 

"Huh," he said softly, looking around at it all. 

The body behind him shifted; Loki hummed a question. 

Tony rolled over, facing Loki, just looking at him for a long moment. 

His impulse was to start the conversation off with a joke, but he was feeling mellow enough that his usual reflexive snark-to-break-the-mood would have just broken an... actually pretty good mood. 

"So what is this?" 

Not that he couldn't - _apparently_ \- do that just fine without snark. 

Loki shrugged one shoulder. "I wanted your company," he said. 

"Uh huh," said Tony. "Still trying to figure out why." He had an inkling, a memory from the battle of a moment of clarity, but he'd come to be extremely suspicious of moments of clarity. Being human, being powerful, it was all too complex to be clear in any given moment, and relying on that kind of insight was hardly ever a good idea. 

"Because," said Loki, "we are a benefit to each other. Companionship, comfort... this has been an alliance that stabilizes us both, and so for my own sake, I wish it to continue." 

"Uh huh," Tony said again. "Because from my perspective, it kinda seems like you've been doing all the work and I've been getting all the benefits." 

Loki sat up against the headboard, long, lean arms resting against his blanketed knees, and Tony told himself sternly to pay attention to his words and not his body. Or at least more of the former and less of the latter. 

The corner of Loki's mouth quirked, as if he'd heard that. But then his face went serious again. 

"You came when I called," he began. "You fought beside me. You do not hesitate to _do._ It is easy for you, and so you do not see how much you have given me. But people like us, we work best with a partner. The watcher and the warrior - the eyes and the hands." 

Loki looked at his hands again, as he sometimes did, as if they held the secrets of existence and those secrets were not necessarily pleasant. 

"Every warrior needs a watcher, and vice versa. I was a watcher by nature and, of necessity, when left alone, became a warrior as well. Thor never understood how each of us balanced the other, not until it was too late. When I fell... when circumstances broke the final bond of that partnership between myself and Thor... I tried to mold myself after the warriors I'd known. Confident to the point of arrogance. Unthinking. Willing to simply act. That was Stuttgart. That was New York. 

"I had to split myself open to make that happen." 

Tony, oddly enough, wasn't finding it difficult, right now, to be silent, to listen. This was worth hearing, worth picking apart, cataloguing, filing next to everything else he'd thought he'd known about the guy. 

"You were a warrior and you came to know your need for a watcher, and so you created one to be part of you - Jarvis. Bruce did the opposite, with Hulk. That is why you two suited each other so well. You knew what it was like, how to fill the gaps. But now your other half is gone. The Mind Gem has forged Vision into something else. Added to him. Given him hands of his own. He has his own warrior-self to look to now. And so you are left to be your own watcher, to spy and to think and to see, for yourself, for Rogers, for the Avengers. And you knew, in some small way, that you could not survive, trying to be both at once. And so you tried to stop being Iron Man. And you are a skilled Watcher, that much is true. You see the flaws in others' proposed courses of action. But your temperament is not suited to being that alone. You crave a part in the action. You are, ultimately, Iron Man." 

Tony felt that. Oh, boy, did he. 

"So I propose a partnership - let me keep watch. Let me be your eyes. You are capable of both, but tired, so tired of being your own lookout. And I, I am tired of being my own brute force." 

Loki was looking at his hands again, as if they'd betrayed him, and boy, did Tony know the feeling of being betrayed by his own foresight. Ultron, a second invasion. The Accords and their disastrous results. 

The way, since the first invasion, since the wormhole, Tony had felt the need to look everywhere, see everything, and it had only hurt him more. Jarvis had called it "hypervigilance." 

Could he let go, just a little, knowing that Loki, of all people, had his back? 

Yes. 

He'd slept better with Loki in his bed than he had in a long time, even knowing Loki had been the one to bring the portal to Earth. 

Because Loki understood. All of it. And his missteps, his needs, were the mirror images of Tony's. The invasion had been his Ultron, his Stark Industries weapons division, the thing he'd found himself in the middle of, seemingly responsible for it, the barely contained disaster that he'd tried desperately to stay one step in front of, and failed. Because he could not be everything at once. 

"Yeah," Tony breathed. "Yeah, we could do that." 

This made sense. This explained everything. 

Or, mostly everything. 

Everything but that last look, before Loki had taken down his shields. And even if it hadn't meant what Tony had thought it meant, it meant _something._

"So," Tony said, shifting until he was leaning against the headboard, next to Loki. "That's all this would be? Just, a partnership? What you always wished things had been like between you and Thor?" 

Loki grimaced. "No." 

"Then _what?_ " Tony insisted. 

"I may be... falling in love with you," Loki admitted. 

Tony winced. "You know, my track record with romance isn't that great, either, you may have noticed." 

"It's simply a feeling. I don't expect anything in return." 

Tony laughed sharply, bitterly. "Well that's... refreshing. And farfetched." _why would you love me?_

Loki shook his head. "It's the truth, believe it or not. And I have long ago ceased expecting people to believe the truth when it comes out of my mouth. So believe whatever you will." 

Tony frowned, giving him a searching glance. "You don't need me to...." _loving you back, that's not a problem, it hardly ever is, but it's never seemed to be enough before. They always wanted more. Pepper always wanted more._

"There's no need to worry. You are enough, even for a god." Loki grinned, making it a joke. 

"Okay, but..." Tony sighed. "You need to know, I've lost everything too many times to risk letting you be my everything." _If that's love, then I'm no good at it._

"I know," Loki said, quietly, solemnly. "I feel the same." 

Tony sighed in relief, and slumped against him. "Well, that's okay, then." 

Loki wormed a hand behind his back, pulling him even closer. "Indeed." 

Suddenly Tony chuckled, and Loki couldn't quite get a grasp on all the quick-rippling thoughts that went into it. 

"What?" he asked 

"If you're my new 'watcher,'" he said, making air quotes, "you're kinda like Jarvis, and you kinda sound like him, too. But, okay. Couple years ago, I was dating a fiery redhead and had an AI that sounded like a classy English dude. Now I have an AI that sounds like a fiery redhead. Guess I needed to complete the set." 

Loki shook his head. "You are incorrigible." 

"Yeah," Tony agreed, then pressed himself against Loki's side. "So. Shall we discuss what other benefits this partnership might have?" 

They were both very unhappy when Thor's loud knock sounded at the door a moment later. 

They looked at each other. Neither of them had stripped down any further than the soft pants that each wore under their armor. 

"Come in," Loki called. 

"Good morning, Tony," Thor nodded politely before turning to his brother. "Loki. We have things we must discuss." 

"Before breakfast?" Loki asked with a flat stare. 

"Yes," Thor replied. "I need to know. Will you appear at breakfast as yourself?" 

Loki threw of his blankets and strode to the window. "Which self would that be, Thor?" he asked, letting his whole body turn blue. 

"Whichever you choose," Thor told him, undeterred. "I would support you, as whatever you chose. Prince, king, regent of Asgard. Prince of Jotunheim. Friend or ally of the Midgardian prince, Tony Stark. But most especially, as my brother. I wish your heroics to be known. I wish you to have a place here." 

Loki scoffed. "It is rather late for that." 

"Perhaps not." Thor watched the unmoving form of his brother. "Please, stand beside me as my brother. If there is no place for you here, then, there is also no place for me." 

Loki looked around him, at his rooms, at the landscape of Asgard. At Tony, in his bed, trying to project confidence but clearly, somewhere in his mind, wondering if their newly-forged partnership was about to become superfluous. 

Well. 

"And if I choose to stand only as the consort of the Midgardian prince?" 

Thor sighed, head dipping a little. But he smiled, sad but genuine. "If that is what you wish." 

"Thor," Loki began, "you must understand that things can never be as they were between us. We cannot be brothers the way we have been in the past." 

"I know," Thor said, "and I would not wish them to be, knowing now how much you suffered." 

Loki nodded. "Then," he said, turning creamy pale again, "I will let you call me brother." He tilted his head. "How will you explain me to the Einherjar, to Sif, Fandral, the court?" 

"That you did not die on Alfheim does not lessen your sacrifice. The truth will do. That you found a way to survive. To return, and continue protecting the Realms." 

"And the throne?" 

"Whatever you intend for it." 

Loki frowned at him. "You give up that power so easily now." 

Thor sighed. "My faith in the Allfather was broken. In his way of ruling, the way he taught me to rule. You always knew that faith needed limits. You always challenged mine. You never claimed to be all-wise. You only ever asked me to _think._ And now that I am wiser, I know that to think before they act is all I can ask of the ruler of the Nine." Thor laughed a little. "And Heimdall stands beside you. I have faith that together, the two of you will not guide us too far afield." 

"We can only do as we think best, and we are, neither of us, infallible." 

"But you _know_ that. And you listen. To each other, to me, to the many mortal souls you look over from the throne." 

Loki smiled. "Now," he told Thor, "you would make a fair king." 

"Because I realize that it is no fit occupation for only one being?" 

"Yes," Loki said, simply, solemnly. Then he waved Thor away with ostentatious annoyance. "Now get out. Let us dress." 

"So I'm a prince and you're my consort?" Tony asked as the door shut. 

"The court is set in its ways," Loki answered. "I merely use terms they will understand. It is true enough." 

Tony smirked. "Ready to ruffle some feathers?" 

"With you beside me?" Loki told him. "Always." 

Tony's eyes went kind of funny and fond, as if he were remembering something, not bad, but gone. 

"Are _you_ ready?" Loki asked him, coming to stand in front of him, look into his face. 

Tony searched Loki's eyes. "Yeah," he said at last. "Yeah, I think I am." 

He curled a hand around the back of Loki's neck, and pulled him down to kiss him. 

* * *

Tony had two rules about packing for any kind of trip, no matter how brief: 

1) Always bring a suit. 

2) Always bring a suit. 

Breakfast may not have been a formal occasion, but Tony was a prince of Midgard, apparently, who was claiming a prince of Asgard as his consort. 

He straightened his tie - the one with a crazy mishmash of Mark III blueprints covering it - and warmed up his "adoring public" smile. 

Thor and Roz walked with them through the palace, the princes in fine leathers that echoed the lines and colors of their armor, Roz in a simple sundress she'd somehow managed to fit into her backpack with all her tech. 

It was interesting, the looks they all got. Thor got unwavering respect, Loki, a range from shock to suspicion to speculation, Tony, a similar blend, but with more open curiosity and less open hostility. They seemed to dismiss Roz as some kind of servant of Tony's, which was, he supposed, not altogether _wrong,_ but also meant that they severely underestimated her. 

No one directly questioned Thor about Loki's presence, but Thor still managed to convey, through casual conversation, that he was a hero and to be welcomed, though neither prince could stay long, this trip. 

The word had spread that Ragnarok had fallen upon Asgard, that it had taken Heimdall's sight, and that all must be ready for the next great battle. Given all of that, Loki's return wasn't the most shocking news. After all, he'd done it before. 

"So that was Ragnarok?" Roz asked once they'd all sat down to breakfast. "But I thought Asgard was meant to be destroyed?" 

"This was part of Ragnarok, I believe," Loki told her. "The prophecies are... somewhat cryptic, and the Midgardian tales imply a much more literal version than the originals. But in a sense, Asgard has been destroyed, or its place in the Realms has been. There are no longer kings, gods, mortals and beasts. There are only beings scrabbling to survive. And there are trials yet to come. We may yet see more literal destruction." 

"Yeah," Tony said. "So now that we have the Soul Gem, what are we planning to do about this Thanos guy?" 

"I think," said Loki, "that there are things that must be dealt with on Earth, and so we shall do our planning there. I will have 'Odin' declare Heimdall his regent during his coming Odinsleep, and then we will depart." 

Bruce nodded. "From what Hulk's told me, I think that we have some time before the storm will hit. A few weeks, at least. I think Thanos got ahead of himself before, or the invasion had some kind of scheduling setback. But we should still be ready." He turned to Tony. "So did you rebuild the tower again, or...." 

"Nah, lightning struck that monstrosity one too many times for my taste. There's a new Avengers facility outside the city now, but I was thinking of sticking to Malibu at first, at least 'til we've figured things out with Vision. You know, Infinity Stones, proximity, all that jazz." 

If the others suspected that things were more complicated than that right now between Tony and Vision, well, no one mentioned it. 

* * *

It was nice to be home. It was nice to have Thor and Bruce back with him, to have a body to curl up against at night. And Bruce, well, he was a lot more comfortable in his own skin now that Hulk had an unerring sense of what people's intent was, and when danger was approaching. If he came out, it must be warranted. 

But they still had a lot to worry about, and it wasn't long before Loki cornered him. 

"As your eyes," Loki told him, "I must tell you that there is a choice to be made, an action to be taken, and the time approaches." 

"Yeah, what's that?" Tony asked warily. 

"You need to decide what to do about your fellow Avengers, those that have been imprisoned." 

"Why do we have to do anything?" Tony asked, crossing his arms stubbornly. "They made their own beds. With the help of that asshole Ross." 

"Earth has bigger problems now. Thanos approaches. Your world, and the rest of the Realms, will need as much help as we can muster." 

"Yeah," Tony muttered, "I know." 

He could feel that panic spiral beginning. Everything closing in, everything he needed to do, everything he should be taking into account. 

"This is why I told them to sign the Accords. This is exactly what I didn't want to happen, what I tried to stop. The world needs them free. The world needs heroes." 

"So break them free," Loki said, sounding almost bored. 

Tony made a rattling, annoyed sound in his throat, then sniffed loudly. "I can't," he snapped. "Being seen out there making up my own rules, being seen as a rogue element was exactly what I was trying to _avoid_ by signing the Accords." 

Loki gazed at his fingernails. "So don't be seen." 

Tony looked at him, frowning, breath calming as he considered this, then nodded slowly. "Okay," he said, "good enough, god of sneaky plots. How do I do that?" 

Loki smiled now. "I'm sure, between the two of us, we'll think of something." 

* * *

In the end, Tony constructed a tiny device that would do more to the Raft's security than scramble surveillance for a few seconds. He used an email drop that Natasha had once made him memorize for emergencies, and arranged a drop location where Roz would stash the device and Nat would pick it up. 

_Can you get it to Steve?_ he'd asked in one of the emails. _Any leads on where he is?_

_I worked with the man for months, he telegraphs everything. Give me two days._

_Don't tell him I sent it._

_What do you take me for? A **bad** double agent?_

Tony chuckled, when he read that, and felt lighter. Things would be okay again between the two of them, eventually. 

* * *

Rhodey had had another surgery while Tony had been offworld, finally getting all the bones and muscles back into the generally right areas, and when Tony finally got in to visit him, he was in quite a bit of pain. 

"I don't like being that drugged," he said when Tony made a motion in the direction of his morphine button. "Leave it." 

"Well I don't like you looking like a rag that's been wrung out and left under the bar, either," Tony retorted. 

Rhodey sighed. "Hospital life is wearing on me," he admitted. His eyes went over Tony's shoulder, to Loki. "You said you might be able to do something about that?" 

"Yes," Loki answered. "I can." 

"Wait, what?" Tony said, eyes widening. "When did this come up? ...You guys talk without me?" 

Rhodey, chuckled a bit, then grimaced again. 

"Right," said Tony. "Never mind that. So how quick can we get with the magical medical mojo?" 

"Be warned," Loki said to Rhodey. "Your injury is too complex for my skills alone. Without a Soul Forge, I can only accelerate your natural healing process. I cannot unbreak what has been broken. So Odin lost his eye while away from Asgard, and learned to fight without it. To restore the use of your legs, you would need to be brought to Asgard. But that will soon be the stage of a great battle. You had best be as prepared as you can manage before venturing there." 

"All right," Rhodey told him. "I can deal with that. A wheelchair's a lot better than this bed. Seen enough vets in wheelchairs to know how much they can still do." 

Tony watched, fascinated, as Loki sat and began. 

They spent several sessions together, green sparks of magic being absorbed into Rhodey's skin in a constant stream as if he were a thirsty, dry sponge. They left Rhodey feeling as though he'd run a marathon, in need of food and rest, but triumphant and glowing. 

Four days in, they had their last, as Rhodey's skin absorbed the sparks one by one, slowly, and then no more. 

At the end of it, Rhodey felt whole, healthy, free of both pain and drugs, thank god. Thank Loki, he supposed. 

And he could wiggle his toes. 

Just barely, but he could. 

Tony looked ecstatic, and immediately started talking external prostheses. "Face it, I'm pretty much the king of that," he said. "We can make this work, Rhodey. I'll get this to work. There's so many directions we can go with this, so, just work with me here, what do you want your specs to be? We can really do anything here...." 

He was healthy, Tony was happy, and Loki looked on with a twinkle in his eye that Rhodey wasn't sure whether to approve of or be afraid of, but whatever the god did next, he'd take Tony's life into account, weighing it as heavy in his decisions as Rhodey would. And that was a hell of a lot better than having Loki as an enemy. 

Yeah, this was a good day. 

* * *

Rhodey insisted that the whole gang relocate to the Avengers facility, once he'd been filled in on the details of the crisis ahead. Loki seemed to think it wouldn't prove much of a problem in the short term, with both stones properly contained. And it was a lot easier to look Vision in the eye, now that Rhodey was healthy again. 

Tony understood that Rhodey didn't regret it, not any of it. That had always been curiously easy for Rhodes, to draw the line between _the buck stops here_ and _send it on up the chain of command._ He'd always been military, that way, right down to his bones. 

Tony could never have been a soldier. 

When the package came to the door, Tony was just happy that Rhodey was feeling up to teasing him like that, could laugh, put all the sucky things that had been happening behind him. 

The box held a travesty of a dinky little flip-phone, and a letter. Steve's attempt to reach out. 

Yes, Tony needed people. Needing Steve... well, that was a more complicated question. Tony... admired him. Despite everything. But he kind of thought that if he never had to speak to the good Cap again, it would be too soon. 

Then Ross called. 

Team Cap had flown the coop. Steve had made use of his little gift, then. With relish, Tony put the general on hold and watched the light blink. 

Looked at the letter, and the little flip phone. 

They were free. As long as they stayed under the radar. And they had Nat, and Clint, a king on their side, a contact in the CIA, and a guy who could probably pick a lock using his entire body. They could do it. 

They didn't need Tony anymore, and that was good. The Earth would need them, all of them, to be a cohesive team, to protect Earth while Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, War Machine and one particularly kickass ex-SHIELD agent, plus whoever else ended up getting pulled into Loki's plots, were offworld trying to stop the galaxy from imploding. 

_I trust them to protect Earth the best way they know how. I don't trust them with the kind of delicate plotting and careful planning that this is going to require. I don't trust them to risk each other's lives to serve the greater good of the galaxy._

_Will we be enough, without them?_

But then Loki's arms were around him, solid and present and strong, and in a silken whisper the god said, "You're thinking far too much." 

"You're not gonna try to shut off my brain, are you? Because I've tried a lot of different methods in a quest for that, but there's always something ticking away up here...." 

"I would never," Loki said, unusually solemn. 

There was something in Loki's eyes, something darkly glinting and haunted, that reminded Tony of hearing Steve say, _"I can't ignore it. Sometimes I wish I could."_

_"No, you don't."_

"You were made to think, and worry, and calculate," Loki went on, "and if you ever ceased to worry completely, you would no longer be Iron Man. And Iron Man," Loki said, leaning in closer, lips brushing Tony's ear, "is the man I love." He moved around in front of Tony's chair, placing a knee on the seat between his legs, but then he held back, looking Tony in the eye for a moment longer. 

"I'm not asking you to put down your burden," he told Tony. "Someone does have to carry it. I'm just asking you to let me help. Lighten the load of it for a while." 

Tony blinked at him, profundity warring with arousal until they fused into an enormous ball of fiercely burning fire in his chest that was just straight-up _love._

"Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah, you could do that." 

Loki grinned wickedly, and then dived in for a kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have reached the end of Civil War, and fixed the timeline problem I had with it! Yay!
> 
> There's much more plot ahead in this 'verse (WHY do I keep coming up with PLOTS) but the next order of business is a nice little PWP!
> 
> This was a trip! Thank you to all my lovely readers for enjoying, commenting, spreading the love, and everything else you do!
> 
> Please check out my [original writing blog](http://irenewendywode.tumblr.com) or my [fandom blog](http://qwanderer.tumblr.com) for more stuff by me


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